Jewels of Allah: The Untold Story of Women in Iran

by Nina Ansary

  Young men who wanted to continue their education at a higher level could attend a religious college or madrasa and focus on theology, philosophy, literature, and Arabic. The number of years one was required to attend these religious colleges was unspecified, and completion of studies was determined by the instructor.11

  As for young women, conventional assumptions deprived them of any type of formal education. Some, but not all, daughters from elite families received sporadic lessons through either paternal or private instruction,12 but for non-elite Persian girls during this period, educational opportunities were virtually nonexistent.

  There was an overall social stigma attached to women receiving an education, as the general belief among clerical leaders was that education for girls was not only against Islamic teaching but a threat to society as well. Many also believed that women did not have the capacity to become educated because their brains were incapable of retaining knowledge.13

  Between the ninth and thirteenth centuries, the Islamic caliphate declined and was replaced by a series of Iranian and Turkic dynasties. In 1220, the Mongol forces of Genghis Khan overran Persia, and descendants of Genghis’s grandson, Hulagu, ruled. During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Turko-Mongol tribes infused into the culture their nomadic traditions of a more inclusive role for women. Thus, Persian women were woven into the fabric of public life to a greater extent than under Islamic rule.

  When compared to Irano-Islamic customs, women had greater social and political standing in the Turko-Mongol tribes. This is partially due to the personal convictions of Genghis Khan (1162–1227), who elevated the status of women by having his own daughters play a crucial role in his empire.14

  In his book The Secret History of the Mongol Queens: How the Daughters of Genghis Khan Rescued His Empire, author Jack Weatherford writes about the impact and legacy of Genghis Khan’s daughters and other Mongol queens:

  The royal Mongol women raced horses, commanded in war, presided as judges in criminal cases, ruled vast territories, and sometimes wrestled men in public sporting competitions. They arrogantly rejected the customs of civilized women of neighboring cultures, such as wearing the veil or hiding in seclusion.15

  The new order didn’t last forever, and Persian women were again forced to comply with patriarchal restrictions.

  In 1501, Shah Ismail I became the first ruler of the Islamic Safavid dynasty (1501–1722), and Shiia Islam was declared the official state religion. In their quest to transform a primarily Sunni tradition, Safavid monarchs imported ulama (clergy) from Arab-speaking countries to enforce a Shiite juridical system.16 The declaration of Shiism as the official state religion granted clerical authority over all public and private matters. The ruling dynasties legitimized their right to rule by claiming that they were the representatives of the Hidden Imam on Earth.17 State and clergy thus became effectively interconnected. Monarchs were obligated to pay homage and often defer to the high-ranking Shiite clergy in all matters of the state, as they needed them as a source of legitimacy for their right to rule.

  In their enhanced position of power, the clergy now determined the role and rights of women. The newly established clergy-state alliance mandated a patriarchal order that included veiling, early marriage, polygamy, and the seclusion of women.18

  While both Sunni and Shiites19 viewed women as inferior, the advent of state-sanctioned Shiite Islam implanted into the society at large the notion that women were subordinate to men. This ideology was reflected in Shiite theologian Muhammad Baqer Majlisi’s influential manifesto, Oceans of Light (Bihar-al-Anwar). The document represents Shiite thought on all aspects of life, including family law, the status of women, and the need for women’s veiling and seclusion.

  With regard to educational policy, girls continued to be effectively banned from education.

  Female confinement to the home continued under succeeding rulers, including the Qajar Dynasty, which reigned from 1785 until 1925. The dominant practice of isolating women from public life had become firmly embedded within the fabric of society, leaving the female population crippled by entrenched mores and shackled to laws that were based on patriarchal interpretations of religious teachings.20

  Meanwhile, cultural changes affecting the status of women were taking hold among Iran’s neighbors. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (1881– 1938), founder of the Republic of Turkey, instigated a succession of radical and ambitious changes, which included the adoption of European practices and institutions relating to education, attire, and most notably the emancipation of the Muslim woman.21 On Iran’s other borders, King Amanullah of Afghanistan (1919–1929) favored reforms that included secular schooling, a ban on child marriage, and discouragement of the veil.22 The influence of Western thought and practices was being felt in the Near East, and it was impacting the treatment of fifty percent of the population.

  Where were the voices of change within Iran?

  DEFIANT AND DETERMINED

  One of the first activists to speak out against unjust treatment of women in Iran was the celebrated Babi theologian Qurrat al-‘Ayn, also known as Tahirah (1817– 1852).

  Qurrat al-‘Ayn (Tahirah)

  Qurrat al-‘Ayn’s quest for the truth began at an early age with her study of theology, jurisprudence, and literature. Her father was a cleric, and although the family was conservative, she was allowed to listen to his lectures from behind a curtain in their home, asking pertinent questions when they arose. Upon marrying her cousin at the age of fourteen, she moved to Karbala, Iraq, where she pursued the teachings of Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsa’i, a philosopher and religious thinker, and his successor, Siyyid Kazim-i Rashti.

  Rashti and his students, including Qurrat al-‘Ayn, believed in the coming of a messiah, and in 1844, Sayyid’Ali Muhammad of Shiraz claimed to be the Messiah, or Bab. Qurrat al-‘Ayn was among the first eighteen believers in the Bab, who named her one of his primary disciples. There were divergent factions within the new religious group. Some remained faithful to established Sharia or Islamic law; others, including the Bab, wanted a radical break with Islam and incorporated egalitarian values into their belief system. Qurrat al-‘Ayn clearly belonged to the latter group. She gave lectures espousing her views, which were widely attended by both women and men, but which also drew the attention of critics who deemed her promiscuous. The Bab defended her, giving her the name Tahirah (“pure one”), which became the nickname by which she was known.

  At a gathering in 1848 in support of a new Babi religion that supported the equality of women, Tahirah appeared without a veil, shocking many of those who attended. It was not long afterward that the government crushed the Babi movement and executed the Bab. Tahirah was placed under house arrest and put to death in 1852.

  Revered by members of the Baha’i faith, the religion that succeeded the Babi movement after her death, Tahirah is remembered as an important spiritual figure, a martyr for the Babi cause and for women’s emancipation.23

  Considered the first suffrage martyr in Iran, Tahirah’s revolutionary spirit is hauntingly captured in her final words prior to her strangulation with a silk scarf: “You can kill me as soon as you like, but you cannot stop the emancipation of women.”24

  A THORN AIMED AT WOMEN

  Sometimes the most powerful statements of protest are uttered with an incisive sense of satire and wit. The Vices of Men can certainly be counted among such rebellious proclamations.

  Written by Bibi Khanum Astarabadi (1858–1921) in 1895, one of the earliest pioneers of women’s rights, The Vices of Men (Ma’ayeb al Rejal) was a critical response to the anonymously written The Education of Women (Ta’deeb al-Nesvan). Considered to be the first declaration of women’s rights in the history of modern Iran, Astarabadi’s book was a penetrating yet satirical response to what she called the “nonsensical argument” in the anonymous piece on female education that spoke of the “slavish subservience” of women.

  The following are remarks from Astarabadi about “anonymous’s” book as
well as her own book:

  When I perused these pages … I found that the author has put forth an unrealistic criticism, senseless and more biting than the thorn of a thistle aimed at women. I did not like the book; I threw it aside.… I wrote a book in answer to this evil-natured man, so that men would know that among women there are still those who are of high standing and whose force of speech may benefit from their eloquence.25

  While Ta’deeb al-Nesvan may have been written by an anonymous man, it is rumored to have been penned by one of the princes of the Qajar court, “who must have feared his wife so greatly that he has not had the courage to put his name on it as its author.” The following provides a short summary of the main recommendations of his book aimed at the “edification” of women:

  1.Woman is a being who, similar to a child, must be educated by a man.

  2.Salvation of woman is conditional upon her absolute obedience to her husband.

  3.The duty of a woman at home is provision of conditions that are conducive to her husband’s tranquility.

  4.The aim of matrimony consists of gratification of the husband’s sexual desires.

  5.Woman must at all times be abashed, except in bed.

  6.Woman must not speak during meals.

  Would the “anonymous” prince allow women to speak in bed? Bibi Khanum’s answer to his ludicrous mandates:

  He should have first corrected his own vices and then given us advice.… He regards himself as “Westernized” and “civilized,” but in fact he is not even “half-civilized.”26

  In her book, Astarabadi also denounced the respected religious figure Muhammad Baqer Majlisi by pointing out his decision to censor certain portions of the Koran for fear that they might corrupt the female mind:

  The great Shi’ite theologian even makes the teaching of the Koran to girls subject to censorship, leaving out the amorous story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife.…27

  A highly regarded figure of the early women’s movement, Bibi Khanum Astarabadi founded the School for Girls (Madreseh-ye Doushizegan) in 1907. She ran the school from her home, providing a formal education to young girls with classes in reading, writing, arithmetic, history, law, religion, geography, and cookery. As a staunch advocate of universal education for girls, Astarabadi wrote numerous articles expressing her views, which were just beginning to be accepted by a handful of forward thinking citizens.

  Another outspoken voice during this era was that of a woman raised in her father’s harem.

  Taj al-Saltaneh (1884–1936), daughter of Qajar King Nasser al-Din Shah (who reigned from 1848–1896), wrote about the plight of women restrained by the bonds of tradition in her book Crowning Anguish: Memoirs of a Persian Princess from the Harem to Modernity.

  Despite her life of privilege, she chooses words that vividly express a woman’s dark fate and describe the unfortunate reality faced by her female peers:

  Taj al-Saltaneh (1884-1936)

  Alas! Persian women have been set aside from humankind and placed together with cattle and beasts. They live their entire lives of desperation in prison, crushed under the weight of bitter ordeals.…28

  In this heartbreaking quote, Taj poetically expresses how she would rather be dead than alive and shrouded in black:

  The lives of Persian women consist of two things: the black and the white. When they step outdoors to take a walk, they are frightful images of mourning in black. When they die, they are shrouded in white. I am one of those ill-stated women, and I much prefer the whiteness of the shroud to that hideous figure of mourning. I have always demurred from putting on that garb. The counterpart to this life of darkness is our day of white. In a corner of my house of sorrow, I comfort myself with the thought of that day; yearning for its advent with incalculable joy, as though it were an eagerly awaited lover.29

  The Veiled Women of Iran—circa 1900

  Taj exposed the sheltered, decadent world of her father’s harem while also revealing the personal challenges posed by a changing Iran. Her views reflect, in a penetrating and personal way, her desire to break with the stifling bonds of tradition. What is most powerful about Taj’s memoir is her innate desire for women’s liberation at a time when such notions were considered scandalous and taboo.

  A witness to the stultifying lack of freedom that Taj described, American missionary Clara Colliver Rice spoke poignantly of the plight of Iranian women in the early 1900s. Her book Persian Women and Their Ways offers insight into the lives of women in Iran during that time and sheds light on how they were “handicapped from the beginning to the end of life.…”30

  The laws of Persia are founded on the Qu’ran: the minutest details of life and conduct are enumerated in the Traditions: Islam has truly permeated the life of the Persian.… The greatest weakness in the social and National life of Persia has been its estimate of women. The seclusion and swaddling of her life has been a religious command and a political policy, and the wastage of a nation’s greatest asset has kept Persia in a backwater.31

  She goes on to observe:

  Mercifully, many of them do not realize this and even look upon their veils as protection and a privilege.32

  Colliver Rice also commented here as well on the lack of educational opportunity for females:

  Education, like everything else … has been controlled by Islam, whose prophet said in regards to girls, “Do not teach them the art of writing.” … A common adage in Iran is that a woman who is taught to write is like a serpent who is given poison to drink. For centuries religion and public opinion has[sic] been against the education of girls.33

  The courageous actions of Taj al-Saltaneh, Bibi Khanum Astarabadi, and a few upper middle class and upper class urban women were not part of an organized women’s movement in Iran. And yet they signaled early signs of opposition to an imposed social order that deprived women of a formal education, political participation, and their overall freedom.

  Many women began to acknowledge that education was the key to expanded opportunities and that educating girls was paramount in combating women’s oppression. One of today’s most prominent women’s rights advocates, Guity Nashat, commented on the struggles of women from that earlier era:

  The greatest obstacle to removing the injustices from which women suffered was their ignorance.… Devoting their energies to enlightening Iranian women, they began their efforts by opening schools, and hoped that a good education would teach the younger generation of women to use their minds and not waste their intelligence in the pursuit of men.34

  In fact, a growing number of Persian women—dedicated and tenacious activists—were unleashing their power as they began to organize, educate, and publish.

  TRAILBLAZING SCHOOLS, PUBLICATIONS, AND SECRET SOCIETIES

  The opening of Bibi Khanum Astarabadi’s School for Girls (Madresehye Doushizegan) in 1907 marked a new beginning.

  At a time when women were not even allowed to walk in the streets after certain hours in various parts of the capital,35 a handful of progressive women realized that education was an essential ingredient if females were to succeed in breaking through the barriers of sexism and patriarchy. For these women, schools for girls became a priority.

  Prior to the Constitutional Revolution (1906–1911), which will be explored later in the chapter, separate schools for boys and girls in and around Tehran were founded and operated primarily by foreign missionaries—including those from the American Presbyterian Church; the British Anglican, French Catholic, and Russian Orthodox churches; as well as Alliance Israélite Universelle, an international Jewish organization.36 As of 1896, a government decree allowed Muslim girls to attend these schools alongside Christians, Jews, and Armenian young women.37 The missionary schools, sponsored and run by Europeans and Americans, were an early sign of Western penetration into Iran—a growing influence that Islamic hardliners would be critical of for decades to come.

  Students at Tarbiyat School

  There were also a number of semi-official Baha’i schools
for girls, including the well-known Tarbiyat School, all of which were founded on the Baha’i’s egalitarian belief that all individuals should be free to pursue knowledge, regardless of gender.38

  With Astrabadi leading the way in 1907, other Persian women who were equally committed to female education began to open schools for Muslim girls in Tehran. Touba Azmudeh inaugurated Namus in 1907, Safiyeh Yazdi established The Effatiyeh School in 1910, and Mahrokh Gowarshenas opened Tarraqi School (Girls’ Progress School) in 1911. Gowharshenas opened the school without her husband’s knowledge, and when he found out, he posed this rhetorical question to her:

  In the next world, when your father asks me why I let his daughter participate in activities contrary to religion and virtue, what shall I say?39

  Mahrokh Gowharshenas’s husband’s remarks aside, it is important to note that the progressive efforts by Persian women, which included opening schools for girls and other advocacy activities, enjoyed the support of a number of progressive-minded and intellectual men, as well as like-minded women.

  Certainly the girls who attended the new schools must have been thrilled to have the opportunity to learn, but the schools were labeled by clerics as “centers for prostitution,” and students often faced various forms of hostility, causing some parents to resort to home schooling.40

  Despite blowback in the wake of these enlightened educational endeavors, the movement toward empowerment forged ahead. One of the most distinguished advocates for female education was Sadiqeh Dowlatabadi (1882–1961).