TO KEEP women quiet, Saudi Arabia’s clerical hierarchy once damned their voices as awra, an Arabic word for genitalia. The late Sheikh Abdelaziz Bin Baz, the kingdom’s top official cleric, opined that women should stay at home to reduce the risk of adultery. In 1994 he ordered the kingdom’s withdrawal from a UN conference because its support for equality between the sexes was “against God’s law”.

Two decades on Saudi female scholars are widely heard. They are penetrating the courts, mosques and universities, and can be heard giving sermons online. Nawal al-Eid, a preacher with her own women’s centre in Riyadh, has 5m followers on Twitter, more than almost any male cleric. “As long as you are qualified, you can speak up,” says Noura al-Hassawi, the director of research at Princess Nourah University’s Islamic Sciences department, the kingdom’s largest for women. “As a scholar, my opinion is equal to a man’s.”

Secular Saudi feminists won international attention in June when Muhammad bin Salman, the reform-leaning Saudi crown prince, ended the kingdom’s ban on women driving. But beneath their niqabs, or face-coverings, their conservative counterparts may be making even more ground. Female religious scholars have added the feminine Arabic suffix, ah, to a host of once-male posts, including da’yiah (preacher), alimah (Islamic scholar) and muftiyah (legal expert). “Women, instead of asking a man…call a more understanding muftiyah,” advises an online directory listing Saudi women qualified in sharia.

Their rise is the result of a surge of Islamic-study programmes for women initiated—ironically—by the male clergy, many of whom were opposed to education for girls. They sanctioned female attendance at primary schools in the 1960s, only on condition that they could oversee the teaching (and budget). Today, female university graduates in Islamic studies outnumber male ones.

Many women graduates used to go into teaching, but now aspire to men-only jobs. This year the prosecution service began training its first intake of female investigating magistrates. The all-male Islamic affairs ministry says it is planning a women’s section. And on July 3rd the justice ministry began recruiting female assistants for its male judges.

Some want to go further. They cite the Koran and examples from the first generation of Muslims (whom Saudi traditionalists profess to follow) to argue that women can lead prayers or even countries.

Change is underway. Judges now let female lawyers speak. They have revoked the right of male guardians to manage a woman’s wealth, veto her marriage and keep custody of her children. The growing sway of women in religious affairs makes some liberals nervous. “We don’t want more fanatics,” says an official. She fears conservative women could derail the prince’s programme of modernisation.

The Shura Council, the kingdom’s quasi-parliament, is also concerned. Last September, it ruled that aspiring muftiyahs require a government licence. Prince Muhammad has muzzled the more independent ones. Ruqayya al-Muharib, a muftiyah, had been expected to become the first woman on the Council of Senior Scholars, the kingdom’s top religious body, but was detained in September.

Nor are conservatives happy. Women keep demanding (and getting) more space in the mosque, complains an official of Islamic affairs. “A generation ago,” he huffs, “they would have stayed at home.”