My project analyzes the competing jurisprudential debate on financial compensation (diya) for accidental crimes that is currently unfolding among traditionalist and reformist religious authorities in Iran. Presently there are two categories of jurisprudential tradition implemented by religious scholars that address this issue. The first category is traditional jurisprudence, which advocates conventional precepts and garners the endorsement of the mainstream conservative religious scholars and jurists. The second type of jurisprudential tradition attempts to reconstitute the legal pluralism of Shi?ism. I look at hermeneutic methodologies employed by these religious authorities that either advocate or oppose equal diya for Muslim men and women. My project contends that that the coexistence of moderate and conservative positions has allowed reformist religious scholars to utilize the frameworks offered by Shi?i legal tradition to contest the discriminatory position advanced by the conservative religious elites. The diya debate in Iran is a symptomatic public referendum on jurisprudential debates among Shi?i religious authorities in Iran. Through textual analysis, I highlight several factors that distinguish the reformists’ approach to diya from their traditional and secular counterparts. Overall, the reformist Shi?i jurists’ critical stance regarding the sustainability of conventional jurisprudential methods has not instigated them to discard it completely but to resort to an alternative method within the framework of the Shi?i tradition. Reformists emphasize that dynamic jurisprudence is a means of coming to terms with the challenges of modernity, in contrast with the more static jurisprudential approach preferred by some of the traditionalist religious scholars. Despite their contention these two juristic positions are not static categories separate from each other; rather, there is a continuing dialogue and discourse among their advocates. Thus, they should be seen as two stages in the unfolding debates over equal compensation in modern Iran.