Jewels of Allah: The Untold Story of Women in Iran

by Nina Ansary

  5R. K. Ramazani, Revolutionary Iran: Challenge and Response in the Middle East (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University).

  6Menashri, Education and the Making of Modern Iran, 327.

  7Ibid., 327.

  8Ibid., 315.

  9Moghadam, Modernizing Women, 208.

  10F. Roudi-Fahimi, “Iran’s Family Planning Program Responding to a Nation’s Needs,” MENA Policy Brief (Washington, DC: Population Reference Bureau), 2002.

  112006 Iran Census; U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), Country Report on Population Reproductive Health and Family Planning Program in the Islamic Republic (Tehran: Family Health Department, Undersecretary for Public Health, Ministry of Health and Medical Education, 1988).

  12Encyclopedia Britannica, last updated June 25, 2014, http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/489481/Hashemi-Rafsanjani.

  13Paidar, “Gender and Democracy,” 18–24.

  14N. Keddie, Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 294; Sedghi, Women and Politics in Iran, 242–272; Brumberg, Reinventing Khomeini.

  15Vakili, Women and Politics, 140–143; J. Kadivar, “Women Working as Judges and Making Judicial Decisions,” in Women, Power and Politics in 21st Century Iran, eds. T. Povey and E. Rostami-Povey (London: Ashgate, 2012), 115.

  16C. De Bellaigue, The Struggle for Iran (New York: New York Review of Books, 2007), 8–9; E. Sciolino, “Daughter of the Revolution Fights the Veil,” New York Times, April 2, 2003, 213; Vakili, Women and Politics, 119–140.

  17M. Kar, “Standing on Shifting Ground: Women and Civil Society in Iran,” in On Shifting Ground, ed. F. Nouraie-Simone (New York: Feminist Press, 2005), 218–234; Samira Makhmalbaf, interview, May 15, 2012, BBC News,
  18G. Kiabany and A. Sreberny, “The Women’s Press in Contemporary Iran: Engendering the Public Sphere,” in Women and Media in the Middle East: Power Through Self-Expression, ed. N. Sakr (New York: I. B. Tauris, 2007); M. Poya, Women, Work and Islamism (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999); Kar, “Standing on Shifting Ground,” 218–234.

  19Z. Mir-Hosseini, “Debating Women: Gender and the Public Sphere in Post-Revolutionary Iran,” in Civil Society in the Muslim World: Contemporary Perspective, ed. A. B. Sajoo (New York: I. B. Tauris, 2002), 95–122; G. Khiabany, “Politics of the Internet in Iran,” in Media, Culture and Society: Living with Globalization and the Islamic State, ed. M. Semati (New York: Routledge, 2007), 17–36.

  20The Guardian Council or the Council of Guardians of the Constitution (Shoray-ye Negahban-e-Qanun-e-Assassi) is the most influential body in Iran currently controlled by the conservative faction. According to the Iranian Constitution, the council must be composed of six theologians (Islamic faqihs—experts in Islamic law) appointed by the Supreme Leader—who are “conscious of the present needs and issues of the day” and six jurists “specializing in different areas of law.” The jurists are nominated by the Head of the Judicial Power (who incidentally, yet not surprisingly, is also appointed by the Supreme Leader) and elected by the parliament (Majlis) (Article 91 of the Islamic Constitution). The council has the authority to interpret the Iranian Constitution (Article 98), supervise elections, and approve candidates by “ensuring … compatibility … with the criteria of Islam and the Constitution” (Articles 94, 96, and 98). Furthermore, the Iranian Parliament derives its legal status from this council, and therefore all bills passed by the Parliament are subject to the approval of the council (Article 94). With respect to judicial authority, the council also functions in a similar manner as that of a constitutional court in that it has the authority to interpret the Constitution (Article 98).

  21“Iran Parliament Bid To Ease Press Curbs Quashed,” Los Angeles Times, April 7, 2000; A. Soroush, “2001 World Press Freedom Review,” http://www.drsoroush.com; S. Patterson, Let the Swords Encircle Me: Iran—A Journey Behind the Headlines (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010), 265; J. Campagna, Iran Briefing, Committee to Protect Journalists, May 2000.

  22De Bellaigue, Struggle for Iran, 5.

  23Moghadam, Modernizing Women, 218; “Profile: Mohammad Khatami,” BBC News, June 17, 2009.

  24Mohammad Khatami, interview, May 1997, “What does Khatami Have to Say About Women?” (“Khatami Dar Bar-re-ye Zanan Che Migouyad?”) Zanan, no. 34, 2–5.

  25D. Menashri, Post-Revolutionary Politics in Iran: Religion, Society and Power (London: Routledge, 2001), 96; “Profile: Mohammad Khatami,” BBC News, June 6, 2001.

  26Afary, Sexual Politics, 330.

  27S. Vakili, Women and Politics, 139; J. Afary, Sexual Politics, 329.

  28Ansari, Modern Iran Since 1921, 248; “Profile: Mohammad Khatami,” BBC News, June 6, 2001.

  29A. Gheissari and V. Nasr, Democracy in Iran: History and the Quest for Liberty (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 135.

  30J. Howard, Inside Iran: Women’s Lives (Washington, DC: Mage Publishers, 2002); Moghadam, Modernizing Women; Poya, Women, Work and Islamism; Mir-Hosseini, Islam and Gender; Afary, Sexual Politics; Vakili, Women and Politics; H. Afshar, Islam and Feminism: An Iranian Case Study (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998).

  31The Concise Oxford English Language Dictionary, 11th edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 522.

  32N. Tohidi, “The Issues at Hand,” in Women in Muslim Societies: Diversity Within Unity, eds. N. Tohidi and H. L. Bodman (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998), 283–285.

  33Z. Mir-Hosseini, Islam and Gender (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999); Z. Mir-Hosseini, “Women and Politics in Post Khomeini Iran: Divorce, Veiling and Emerging Feminism,” in Women and Politics in the Third World, ed. H. Afshar (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), 145–174; Z. Mir-Hosseini, “Stretching the Limits: A Feminist Reading of the Sharia in Post-Khomeini Iran,” in Islam and Feminism: Legal and Literary Perspectives, ed. M. Yamani (London: Ithaca Press, 1996), 285-319; Paidar, “Gender and Democracy,” 18–24.

  34H. Moghissi, Populism and Feminism in Iran: Women’s Struggle in a Male-Defined Revolutionary Movement (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996); H. Moghissi, Feminism and Islamic Fundamentalism: The Limits of Post-Modern Analysis (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002); H. Moghissi, “Women, Modernity, and Political Islam,” Iran Bulletin (Autumn/Winter 1998); H. Shahidian, “The Iranian Left: The Woman Question: The Revolution of 1978–1979,” International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 26, no. 2: 223-247; H. Shahidian, “Islamic Feminism Encounters Western Feminism: Towards an Indigenous Alternative?” (paper presented to the Feminism and Globalization Seminar, Illinois State University, Springfield, IL: February 12, 1998); H. Shahidian, Women in Iran: Gender Politics in the Islamic Republic (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002); H. Shahidian, Women in Iran: Emerging Voices: The Women’s Movement (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002); H. Afshar, “Feminist Voices,” in Women and Politics in the Third World, ed. H. Afshar (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), 142–169; H. Afshar, “Islam and Feminism: An Analysis of Political Strategies,” in Islam and Feminism, ed. M. Yamani, 197–217; S. Mojab, “Islamic Feminism: Alternative or Contradiction,” in Women and Islam: Critical Concepts in Sociology, ed. H. Moghissi (London and New York: Routledge, 2005), 320–325; Tohidi, “The Issues at Hand,” in Women in Muslim Societies, eds. Tohidi and Bodman, 277–294; N. Tohidi, “Gender and Islamic Fundamentalism: Feminist Politics in Iran,” in The Politics of Feminism, eds. C. T. Mohanty, A. Russo, and L. Torres (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991), 251–267; N. Tohidi, “Modernity, Islamization and Women in Iran,” in Gender and National Identity: Women in Politics in Muslim Societies, ed. V. Moghadam (London: Zed Books, 1994), 110–147; Moghadam, “Islamic Feminism and Its Discontents,” 1135–1171; V. Moghadam, Women, Work, and Economic Reform
in the Middle East and North Africa (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998); A. Najmabadi, “Power, Morality and the New Muslim Womanhood,” in The Politics of Social Transformation in Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan, eds. M. Weiner and A. Banuazizi (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1994), 366–389; M. Najmabadi, “Feminism in the Islamic Republic: Years of Hardship, Years of Growth,” in Gender and Social Change in the Muslim World, eds. Y. Haddad and J. Esposito (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 59–84; Z. Mir-Hosseini, “Sexuality, Rights and Islam,” in Women in Iran From 1800 to the Islamic Republic, eds. L. Beck and G. Nashat (Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2004), 204–217.

  35Moghadam, Islamic Feminism, 1154.

  36Afshar, Islam and Feminism, 18.

  37Mojab, Islamic Feminism, 325.

  38H. Shahidian, “Feminism in Iran: In Search of What?” Zanan, no. 46 (1998): 32–38.

  39Shahidian, “Islamic Feminism Encounters Western Feminism,” 11–12.

  40Poya, Women, Work & Islamism, 122; Vakili, Women and Politics; Afshar, Islam and Feminism; Moghadam, “Islamic Feminism and Its Discontents”; Kar, Women’s Strategies in Iran; Halper, “Law and Women’s Agency.”

  41Mir-Hosseini, “Sexuality, Rights, and Islam,” 212.

  42E. Addley, “Zahra Rahnavard: Wife Who Urges Protesters On,” Guardian, theguardian.com, June 15, 2009, http://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jun/15/zahra-rhanavard-iran-elections-presidential.

  43Jamileh Kadivar, “Women and Executive Power” in Women, Power and Politics in 21st Century Iran, eds. T. Povey and E. Rostami-Povey (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Co., 2012).

  44Jenny Cleveson, “Interview with Parvin Ardalan,” New Internationalist, 440, March 1, 2011. http://newint.org/columns/makingwaves/2011/03/01/interview-parvin-ardalan/.

  45Arash Karami, “Faezeh Rafsanjani: Prison Was the Best Time of My Life,” Iran Pulse, August 19, 2013, http://iranpulse.al-monitor.com/index. php/2013/08/2637/faezeh-rafsanjani-prison-was-the-best-time-of-my-life/.

  46“Azam Taleghani Scolds the Iranian Parliament for Straying Far from People (and Islam),” August 29, 2009, http://iranfacts.blogspot.com/2009/08/azam-taleghani-scolds-iranian-clerics.html.

  47M. Kar, “Death of a Mannequin,” in My Sister, Guard Your Veil; My Brother, Guard Your Eyes: Uncensored Iranian Voice, ed. Lila Azam Zanganeh (Boston, MA: Beacon Press, 2006), 37.

  48Asharq Al-Awsat, “Shahla Lahiji: Iran’s First Female Publisher,” May 2, 2007, http://www.aawsat.net/2007/05/article55262845.

  49“Shirin Ebadi: Who Defines Islam?” Shirin Ebadi in conversation with Deniz Kandiyoti, opendemocracy.net, March 21, 2011, https://www.opendemocracy.net/5050/shirin-ebadi/shirin-ebadi-who-defines-islam.

  50Asharq Al-Awsat, “Inside Iran: Interview with Zanan magazine’s editor, Shahla Sherkat,” May 11, 2007, http://www.aawsat.net/2007/05/article55262756.

  51“The Receipt and Expansion of Women’s Rights,” (“Qabz va Bast-e Hoquq-e Zanan”), interview with Abdolkarim Soroush, Zanan, no. 59, January 2000, 32–38.

  52D. Kandiyoti, “Bargaining with Patriarchy,” Gender and Society 2, no. 3 (Sept. 1988): 274–290.

  53I. Lichter, Muslim Women Reformers: Inspiring Voices Against Oppression (New York: Prometheus Books), 2009; Mir-Hosseini “Debating Women,” in Civil Society in the Muslim World, ed. Sajoo, 95–122; Vakili, Women and Politics; Afary, Sexual Politics; Poya, Women, Work & Islamism; Sedghi, Women and Politics in Iran; Moghadam, Islamic Feminism; Moghadam, Modernizing Women; Howard, Inside Iran; H. Nikanashi, “Power, Ideology and Women’s Consciousness in Post-Revolutionary Iran,” in Women in Muslim Societies: Diversity Within Unity, eds. H. Bodman and N. Tohidi (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 1998), 83–100; Shahidian, Women in Iran; E. Rostami-Povey, “Feminist Contestations of Institutional Domains in Iran,” Feminist Review 69, no. 1 (2001); Mir-Hosseini, Islam and Gender; A. Samiuddin and R. Khanum, “Gender Politics in Iran and Afghanistan,” in Muslim Feminism and Feminist Movements, eds. A. Samiuddin and R. Khanum (Central Asia) (Delhi, India : Global Visions Publishing House, 2002), 45–81; H. Shahidian, Journalism in Iran: From Mission to Profession (London and New York: Routledge, 2007).

  54Moghadam, Modernizing Women, 177.

  55Nikanashi, “Power, Ideology and Women’s Consciousness,” 97; Vakili, Women and Politics, 85.

  56G. Khiabany, Blogistan: The Internet and Politics in Iran (London and New York: I. B. Tauris, 2010), 97; Poya, Women, Work & Islamlism, 139.

  57Vakili, Women and Politics, 117.

  58Mir-Hosseini, “Debating Women” in Sajoo, ed., Civil Society in the Muslim World, 102.

  59Shahidian, Women in Iran, 41; G. Khiabany and A. Sreberny, “The Women’s Press in Contemporary Iran: Engendering the Public Sphere,” in Women and Media in the Middle East, ed. N. Sakr (London: I. B. Tauris, 2004), 30; Khiabany, Blogistan, 103.

  60Khiabany and Sreberny, “Women’s Press,” 31–32.

  61Moghadam, Modernizing Women, 219.

  62Khiabany, Blogistan, 103; Khiabany and Sreberny, “Women’s Press,” 30–32.

  63Vakili, Women and Politics, 122.

  64Lily Farhadpour, “Women, Gender Roles, Media and Journalism,” in Women, Power and Politics in 21st Century Iran, eds. Tara Povery and E. Rostami-Povery (Surrey, UK and Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing, 2012), 98.

  65Mir-Hosseini, “Debating Women,” 114.

  66Ibid., 113.

  67Howard, Inside Iran, 47–51; Khiabany and Sreberny, “Women’s Press,” 35–36, Mir-Hosseini, “Debating Women,” in Sajoo, ed., Civil Society in the Muslim World, 113–115; Z. Mir-Hosseini, “Islam, Women and Civil Rights: The Religious Debate in the Iran of the 1990s,” in Women, Religion, and Culture in Iran, eds. V. Martin and S. Ansari (Surry: Curzon Press, 2002), 116.

  68Khiabany and Sreberny, “Women’s Press,” 35.

  69Mir-Hosseini, “Islam, Women and Civil Rights” in Martin and Ansari, eds., Women, Religion and Culture in Iran, 137; Khiabany and Sreberny, “Women’s Press,” 33.

  70Howard, Inside Iran, 151–212.

  71Rostami-Povey, “Feminist Contestations,” 58.

  72“Iranian Newspaper Banned,” BBC News, April 7, 1999.

  73“Iran Jails Former President Rafsanjani’s Daughter,” BBC News, January 3, 2012.

  74H. Esfandiari, “The Politics of the ‘Woman Question’ in the Islamic Republic, 1979–1999,” in Iran at the Crossroads, eds. J. Esposito and R. Ramazani (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 110.

  75Afary, Sexual Politics, 317.

  76Mir-Hosseini, “Debating Women,” 109; Nikanashi, “Power, Ideology, and Women’s Consciousness,” 85–86; Mir-Hosseini, Islam and Gender, 86.

  77Afary, Sexual Politics, 310

  78Vakili, Women and Politics, 120.

  79Afary, Sexual Politics, 316; Khiabany, Blogistan, 90–97; Vakili, Women and Politics, 87; Khiabany and Sreberny, “Women’s Press,” 19; Shahidian, Women in Iran, 82–85.

  80Mir-Hosseini, “Debating Women,” 103–105; Khiabany and Sreberny, “Women’s Press,” 34–35; Keddie, Modern Iran; Mir-Hosseini, Islam and Gender, 215.

  81Poya, Women, Work & Islamism, 140.

  82P. Ardalan, “The Year 77—The Best and Worst Year for Women” (“ Sal-e Haftado Haft—Behtarin va Badtarin Baraye Zanan”), Zanan 9, no. 51 (March 1999).

  83“Where are they now? Noushin Ahmadi Khorasani,” New Internationalist, March 2013, http://newint.org/features/2013/03/01/noushin-ahamdi-khorasani/.

  84Moghadam, Modernizing Women, 217; Howard, Inside Iran, 13.

  85Moghadam, “Islamic Feminism,” 1156; A. Samiuddin and R. Khanum, “Gender Politics in Iran and Afghanistan,” in Muslim Feminism and Feminist Movements (Central Asia), eds. A. Saiuddin and R. Khanum (Delhi, India: Global Vision Publishing House, 2002), 236; Afshar, “Islam and Feminism,” 214.

  86“Iran Hardliners Push for Family Law Bill That Activists Say Further Erodes Women’s Rights,” Los Angeles Times, August 26, 2010.

  CHAPTER Six

 
; 1Deborah Campbell, “Iran’s Quiet Revolution: A Feminist Magazine, a Nobelist, and a Rising Generation Try to Promote Women’s Equality,” msmagazine.com, Winter 2007, http://www.msmagazine.com/winter2007/iransquietrevolution.asp.

  2Nina Ansary, “Iranian Women’s Magazine Zanan Makes Comeback” Women’s eNews, May 28, 2014, http://www.trust.org/item/20140528202132-hlfws/.

  3Golnaz Esfandiari, “Iranian women’s magazine editor accused of promoting feminist views,” theguardian.com, September 5, 2014, http://www.theguardian.com/world/iran-blog/2014/sep/05/iran-editor-feminist-views.

  4Afary, Sexual Politics, 317.

  5Khiabany, Blogistan, 102.

  6Fiq’h is an Arabic term, which literally translated means “full comprehension, to know, to understand.” It is the human understanding of the Sharia, which has been expanded through interpretation of the Koran by Islamic jurists and the process of gaining knowledge of Islam through jurisprudence.

  7As quoted in H. Shahidian, Women in Iran: Emerging Voices in the Women’s Movement (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2002), 71.

  8“Inside Iran: Interview with ‘Zanan’ Magazine’s Editor Shahla Sherkat,” Asharq al-Awsat, May 11, 2007.

  9Afary, Sexual Politics, 316–317; Lichter, Muslim Women Reformers, 196; Kar, “Standing on Shifting Ground,” 225.

  10Lichter, Muslim Women Reformers, 133.

  11Lichter, Muslim Women Reformers, 197; Poya, Women, Work & Islamism, 141; Interview with Mohammad Khatami, Zanan, no. 34, 6th year, 2–5, May 1997; F. Sadeghi, “Bypassing Islamism and Feminism: Women’s Resistance and Rebellion in Post-Revolutionary Iran,” in Revue des Mondes Musulmans et de la Méditeranée, December 2010, 218.