Over recent years, several studies of female religious authority in Islam have been written in various academic disciplines such as history, anthropology, education, and sociology. Many of these studies give attention to the way in which Muslim women achieve their position as religious authority. Other studies have focused on the way these women exercise agency and play role in a variety of fields. Little attention has been paid to the way in which Muslim women gain their position as religious authorities, exercise agency, and play role within a patriarchal religious organization in which men hold more power and authority. Furthermore, there is an assumption that women will attempt to free themselves and resist to such institution. Nevertheless, many studies indicate that characteristic such as autonomy and resistance do not always correspond to women who follow a particular religion. Drawing on an ethnographic approach, this study aims to fill this gap by focusing on the position of religious authority of Muslim women as well as their agency and role within two patriarchal religious organizations in Indonesia. Besides, this study attempts to engage in the academic discussion regarding the concepts of Islamic religious authority, religious women’s agency, and Islamic ritual. The main research question of this study is: How do the Aisyiyah and Muslimat NU women gain their position as religious authorities, exercise their agency, and play important roles within two patriarchal religious organizations – Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama – through the Qur’an recitation practices during life cycle, calendrical and occasional rituals? Using Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of practice, Catherine Bell’s ritual theory, and acculturation theory to analyse my findings, from the emic perspective, this study reveals that through the Qur’anic recitation practices in the public life cycle, calendrical, and occasional rituals, the Aisyiyah and Muslimat NU in this study gained a position of religious authority by accumulating and expressing symbolic capital mixed of cultural and social as well as showing the compatibility of their habitus with the habitus of the organizations. Through these rituals, they exercised agency by negotiating the meaning of Islamic ritual, attempting to bridge the gap between the past practices and the present, as well as reinterpreting the prescription of the ritual practices in different contexts. Also, through these rituals, they played important roles in conveying Islamic teaching based on the views of the organizations and in maintaining the identity of the Muhammadiyah as the modernist and NU as the traditionalist organizations. From the etic perspective, this study concludes that in Indonesia, religious authority is either ‘official’ in the hand of formal institutions such as fatwa organizations and Islamic authority centres, or ‘unofficial’ in the hand of groups such as – male and female –individual ulama, Sufi, and new Muslim intellectuals. Individual agents including Muslim women outside the formal institutions may be recognised as authorities, become more authoritative, and have greater influence within Muslim societies than those inside the official institutions. These individual agents achieve position of religious authorities by accumulating symbolic capital in accordance with the Islamic fields in Indonesia. Within the Islamic fields in Indonesia, the habitus of individual agents are shaped by the objective structures and at the same time shape the structures. With various Islamic sub-fields in the Indonesian context, different kinds of habitus are also found. Individual agents, either male or female have agency and more room within the fields. It does not mean, however, they resist to the structures. Instead, many of them choose to express their agency in the form of obedience. This study shows that there are varying opinions regarding the concept of Islamic ritual and diversity of ritual practices within Muslim communities in Indonesia. This phenomenon indicates that past patterns are reproduced, reinterpreted, or transformed. Furthermore, when Islamic texts and local culture meet, various acculturation models are found, such as adaptation, separation, reformation, and neutralization. For further research, turning away from Bourdieu’s explicit concept of religious field and using Bourdieu’s general concepts of field, capital, and habitus can help us analysing Islamic field, in particular the authority and agency of Muslim women in the Indonesian context. In addition, considering Islam as a discursive tradition is a constructive way to understand Islam and Muslim practices, in particular with regard to the issue of Islamic ritual.