A woman can be a mujtahid and there are dozens who have attained the rank in the modern history of Iran (for instance, Amina Bint al-Majlisi in the Safavid era, Bibi Khanum in the Qajar era, Lady Amin in the Pahlavi era, and Zohreh Sefati during the time of the Islamic Republic).
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Zohreh Sefati and some male jurists believe a female mujtahid can become a marjaʻ, but many male jurists believe a marjaʻ must be male.
Like Zohreh Sefati, he believes that women can even become a marja in Islam, i.e. that men and women can follow a female Islamic jurists' ijtihad.
Sefati has also co-founded a theology school for women in Qom, which later became known as Maktab-e Tawhid.
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Sefati and some male jurists, such as Yousef Saanei, believe a female mujtahid can become a source of emulation (a marja), i.e. that both men and women can perform taqlid (emulation) of a woman mujtahid.