DAWLATĀBĀDĪ, ṢEDDĪQA(b. Isfahan, 18

DAWLATĀBĀDĪ, ṢEDDĪQA
(b. Isfahan, 1883, d. Tehran, 28 July 1961), journalist, educator, and pioneer in the movement to emancipate women in Persia.

DAWLATĀBĀDĪ, ṢEDDĪQA (b. Isfahan, 1300/1883, d. Tehran, 6 Mordād 1340 Š./28 July 1961), journalist, educator, and pioneer in the movement to emancipate women in Persia. Her mother, Ḵātema, was descended from a family of local ʿolamāʾ, and her father, Mīrzā Hādī Dawlatābādī, was a prominent mojtahed (theologian) of Isfahan. Ṣeddīqa spent her childhood in Tehran, where she was privately tutored in Persian, Arabic, and French. At the age of twenty years she was married to an elderly physician, but the marriage ended in divorce in 1339/1921.
In 1336/1917 she founded Maktab-ḵāna-ye šarʿīāt, the first school for girls in Isfahan, the beginning of her lifelong commitment to social service. A year later she established Šerkat-e ḵawātīn-e Eṣfahān (Association of women of Isfahan; Bāmdād, pp. 78-79) and in 1337/1919 Zabān-e zanān (Voice of women), the third Persian newspaper founded and managed by a woman. The newspaper aroused the hostility of fanatics, who repeatedly attacked its office and finally forced Dawlatābādī to close it after only three years of publication. She then moved to Tehran, where a year later she resumed publication of Zabān-e zanān in magazine format (Ṣadr Hāšemī, Jarāʾed o majallāt III, pp. 6-11).
In 1301 Š./1922 Dawlatābādī went to Paris to pursue her education. She studied family hygiene, then attended the Sorbonne, where she received a bachelor’s degree in psychology and education. During this period she published in French journals articles on the control of Persian women over personal property and the superiority of the rights of Islamic women to those of European women. In 1926, as the representative of Persian women, she presented a paper at the International Congress of Women in Paris (Winsor). In 1306 Š./1927 she returned to Persia and was hired by the Ministry of education (Wezārat-e farhang) as an inspector for girls’ schools.
Dawlatābādī never wore the veil, and in 1315 Š./1936 she became director of the Women’s center (Kānūn-e bānovān), sponsored by the Ministry of education as the first step in a program to eliminate veiling of Persian women. In this post, where she remained for the rest of her working life, she organized literacy classes for women, as well as classes on homemaking, family hygiene, and raising children. She also lectured and wrote on social issues, including women’s rights (e.g., Majalla-ye zabān-e zanān, Ḵordād 1323 Š./June 1944, pp. 3-4; Tīr/July, p. 16; Šahrīvar/September, pp. 7-10; Farvardīn 1324/April 1945, pp. 4-6; Ḵordād/June, p. 12).
She died in August 1961 and was buried in Zarganda, Tehran, next to her older brother Yaḥya Dawlatābādī.

Bibliography:
B. Bāmdād, Zan-e īrānī az enqelāb-e mašrūṭīyat tā enqelāb-e safīd, ed. and tr. F. R. Bagley as From Darkness into Light. Women’s Emancipation in Iran, Hicksville, N.Y., 1977.
Majalla-ye nūr-e ʿālam 10, Šahrīvar 1340 Š./September 1961, pp. 6-9.
Majalla-ye sapīda-ye fardā 11-12, Tīr 1334 Š./July 1955, pp. 27-31.
F. Qavīmī, Kar-nāma-ye zanān-e mašhūr-e Īrān . . ., Tehran, 1352 Š./1973, pp. 109-11.
P. Šayḵ-al-Eslāmī, Zanān-e Rūz-nāmanegār, n.p., 1351 Š./1992, pp. 88-99.
M. Winsor, “The Blossoming of a Persian Feminist,” Equal Rights 13/23, 1926.

(Mehranguiz Manoutchehrian)
Originally Published: December 15, 1994
Last Updated: December 15, 1994
DAWLATĀBĀDĪ, ṢEDDĪQA
0 COMMENTSADD COMMENT
3 TAGSADD A TAG
Sections in this entry
IMAGES / TABLES
TAGS
©2015 Encyclopædia Iranica. All Rights Reserved.
ISSN 2330-4804

• Ab
• Ac
• Am
• As
• B
• C
• D
• E
• F
• G
• H
• I
• J
• K
• L
• M
• N
• O
• P
• Q
• R
• S
• T
• U
• V
• W
• X
• Y
• Z
•

Encyclopædia Iranica
Advanced Search
• About Iranica
• Support Iranica
• Contact Us
• FAQS
ShareThis
WOMEN iv. in the works of the Bab and in the Babi Movement
The Bab elevated the status of women in his writings and confirmed this in his actions. The Babi community reflected this change in the actions of the Babi women.

WOMEN
iv. IN THE WORKS OF THE BAB AND IN THE BABI MOVEMENT
The Bab elevated the status of women in his writings and confirmed this in his actions. The Babi community reflected this change in the actions of the Babi women.
(1) Women in the works of the Bab.
(2) Women in the Babi movement.
(1) Women in the works of the Bab. Theologically, the Bab regarded God as utterly beyond the reach and knowledge of humanity and he characterised the Primal Will as the locus of the primal manifestation of the Godhead and the fashioner of the creation. This Primal Will is represented by the Maid of Heaven who descends to earth. And in describing this figure, the Bab writes: "I am the Maid of Heaven begotten by the Spirit of Bahāʾ" (Qayyum al-asmāʾ, p. 52; Saeidi, pp. 152-53). Thus the Bab created a female symbol for the highest spiritual aspect of himself (see also Lawson).
In general, the Bab treats women and men equally in the laws that he gives. In a number of places, the Bab specifically ameliorates some of the burdens that Islamic law had laid upon women; and so for example, divorce is made more difficult by the imposition of a twelve-month delay (Persian Bayān 6:12), the severe restrictions on their social intercourse is relaxed (Persian Bayān 8:10), and men are ordered not to harm women (Ṣaḥifa Bayn al-Ḥaramayn, p. 82). He orders men to treat women with the utmost love (Ṣaḥifa-ye ʿAdliya, pp. 32, 38; Saeidi, p. 236). On occasions, the Bab even gives women preference over men; for example, he sets a penalty for anyone who causes grief to another person, which he equates to causing grief to God, but he says that the penalty for causing grief to women is doubled (Persian Bayān 7:18); also, having laid down the duty of pilgrimage for whoever can afford it, he exempts women from this obligation unless they live nearby, so that no hardship should come upon them on the way (Persian Bayān 4:18).
In many places in his writings, the Bab refers to women as the "possessors of circles" (ulā al-dawāʾer; see for example Persian Bayān 4:5, 7:18, 8:6). This refers to the Bab's injunction that women carry on them a piece of paper on which is drawn six concentric circles, between which are five lines of Babi scripture. The two numbers, five and six, signifying Howa (He, i.e. God). Other instructions are also given regarding these circles, but the overall intention is that the circle symbolizes the Sun of Truth (or the Manifestation of God, the term used by the Bab for the figures such as Moses, Jesus, Muhammad and himself) and so the woman carrying it is constantly reminded to look for the next Manifestation of God "He whom God shall make manifest" (Persian Bayān 5:10; Saeidi, pp. 329-31).
(2) Women in the Babi movement. Most contemporary accounts agree that one of the main social impacts of the Babi movement was the amelioration of the position of women (see, e.g., Momen, pp. 27, 75). Quite apart from what is in his writings, the Bab signalled that his religion would lead to an improvement in the position of women by the support that he gave to his leading female disciple, Qorrat-al-ʿAyn. Her radicalism in pushing forward the implications of the claims of the Bab to the point of infracting the precepts of Shiʿism while she was in Karbalāʾ led another senior Babi, Shaikh Aḥmad Moʿallem-e Ḥeṣāri to complain about her to the Bab in 1846. The Bab wrote back praising Qorrat-al-ʿAyn and absolving her of any guilt by giving her the title of Ṭāhera (q.v.; “the pure one”; quoted in Fāżel Māzandarāni, p. 332). She was also regarded by the Babis as the return of Fātema, the Prophet's daughter, on the basis of what the Bab had written (Persian Bayān 1:4). She was later to push forward her radicalism and even to appear unveiled at the conference of Badašt (1848), all with the evident approval of the Bab (Nabil, pp. 292-98).
During the Babi upheaval at Zanjān, the British consul, Abbott, visited the scene of the operations and reported to Shiel, the British minister: "They [the Babis] fight in the most obstinate and spirited manner, the women even, of whom several have been killed, engaging in the strife" (quoted in Momen, p. 11; cf. Nabil, p. 563). During this episode, a latter day Joan of Arc arose in the person of Zaynab, a young Babi girl, who dressed as a man and participated in the fighting with such courage and success that she became the terror of the royal troops and was put in command of one section of the Babi defences (Nabil, pp. 549-52; Walbridge, pp. 355-56).
During the Babi upheaval in Nayriz (1850), the women also played an important part; Nabil (p. 487) records: "The uproar caused by their [the Babis'] womenfolk, their amazing audacity and self confidence, utterly demoralized their opponents and paralysed their efforts." It may even be that in the second Neyriz upheaval (1853), the Babi women outnumbered the men, many of whom had been killed in the first episode.
Bibliography:
Mehri Afnān, "Maqām-e zan dar āṯār-e Hażrat-e Noqṭa-ye Ulā wa mašāhir-e zanān dar ʿahd-e aʿlā," Ḵušahā-ʾi az ḵerman-e adab o honar 6, 1995, pp. 207-27.
The Bab, Qayyum al-asmāʾ, ms. dated 1261, in Afnan Library, Tonbridge, UK.
Idem, Persian Bayān, published as Ketāb-e mostaṭāb-e Bayān, n.p., n.d.; E.G. Browne's summary translation is in Moojan Momen, ed., Selections from the Writings of E.G. Browne on the Bābi and Bahā'i Religions, Oxford, 1987, pp. 316-406
Idem, Ṣaḥifa-ye ʿAdliya, n.p., n.d.
Idem, Ṣaḥifa Bayn al-Ḥaramayn, Cambridge University Library mss.Or Ms 943.
Fāżel Māzandarāni, Tārik-e Ẓohur al-Ḥaqq, vol. 3, n.p., n.d.
Todd Lawson, "The Authority of the Feminine and Fatima's Place in an Early Work of the

النتائج (الإنجليزية) 2:

DAWLATĀBĀDĪ, ṢEDDĪQA
(b. Isfahan, 1883, d. Tehran, 28 July one thousand nine hundred sixty-one), journalist, educator, and pioneer in the movement to Emancipate women in Persia. DAWLATĀBĀDĪ, ṢEDDĪQA (b. Isfahan, 1300/1883, d. Tehran, 6 Mordād 1340 Š. / 28 July 1961), journalist, educator, and pioneer in the movement to emancipate women in Persia. Her mother, Ḵātema, was descended from a family of local'olamā', and her father, Mīrzā Hādī Dawlatābādī, was a prominent mojtahed (theologian) of Isfahan. Ṣeddīqa spent her childhood in Tehran, where she was privately tutored in Persian, Arabic, and French. At the age of twenty years she was married to an elderly physician, but the Marriage ended in divorce in 1339/1921. In 1336/1917 she founded Maktab-Ḵāna-ye Šar'īāt, the first school for girls in Isfahan, the beginning of her lifelong commitment to social service. A year later she established Šerkat-e ḵawātīn-e Eṣfahān (Association of women of Isfahan; Bāmdād, pp. 78-79) and in 1337/1919 Zabān-e zanān (Voice of women), the third Persian newspaper founded and managed by a woman. The newspaper aroused the hostility of fanatics, who repeatedly attacked its office and finally forced Dawlatābādī to close it after only three years of publication. She then moved to Tehran, where a year later she Resumed publication of e-Zabān Zanān in magazine format (Ṣadr Hāšemī, Jarā'ed o Majallāt III, pp. 6-11). In one thousand three hundred and one Š. / 1922 Dawlatābādī went to Paris to pursue her education. She studied family hygiene, then attended the Sorbonne, where she received a bachelor's degree in psychology and education. During this period she published in French journals articles on the control of Persian women over personal property and the superiority of the rights of Islamic women to those of European women. In 1926, as the representative of Persian women, she presented a paper at the International Congress of Women in Paris (Winsor). In in 1306 Š. / 1,927 she returned to Persia and was hired by the Ministry of education (Wezārat farhang-e) as an inspector for girls' schools. Dawlatābādī never wore the veil, and in 1315 Š. / 1936 she Became director of the Women's center (Kānūn-e bānovān), sponsored by the Ministry of education as the first step in a program to eliminate veiling of Persian women. In this post, where she remained for the rest of her working life, she organized literacy classes for women, as well as classes on homemaking, family hygiene, and raising children. She also lectured and wrote on social issues, including women's rights (eg, Majalla-ye zabān-e zanān, Ḵordād 1323 Š. / June 1944, pp. 3-4; Tīr / July, p. 16; Šahrīvar / September, pp . 7-10; Farvardīn one thousand three hundred and twenty-four / April 1945, pp. 4-6; Ḵordād / June, p. 12). She Died in August one thousand nine hundred and sixty-one and was buried in Zarganda, Tehran, next to her older brother Yaḥya Dawlatābādī. Bibliography: B . Bāmdād, Zan-e īrānī az enqelāb-e mašrūṭīyat tā enqelāb-e safīd, ed. and tr. FR Bagley as From Darkness into Light. Women's Emancipation in Iran, Hicksville, NY, 1977. Majalla-ye Nūr-e'ālam 10, Šahrīvar in 1340 Š. / September 1 961, pp. 6-9. Majalla Sapīda-ye-ye Fardā 11-12, Tīr 1,334 Š. / 1,955 July, pp. 27-31. F. Qavīmī, Kar-nāma-ye zanān-e mašhūr-e Īrān. . ., Tehran, 1352 Š. / 1973, pp. From 109 to 11. P. Šayḵ-al-Eslāmī, Zanān-e Rūz-nāmanegār, np, 1351 Š. / 1992, pp. 88-99. M. Winsor, "The Blossoming of a Persian Feminist," Equal Rights 13/23, 1926. (Mehranguiz Manoutchehrian) Originally Published: December 15, 1994 Last Updated: December 15, 1994 DAWLATĀBĀDĪ, ṢEDDĪQA COMMENTSADD COMMENT 0 3 TAGSADD A TAG Sections in this entry IMAGES / TABLES TAGS © Encyclopædia Iranica in 2015. All Rights Reserved. ISSN 2330-4804 • Ab • Ac • Am • As • B • C • D • E • F • G • H • I • J • K • L • M • N • O • P • Q • R • S • T • U • V • W • X • Y • Z • Encyclopædia Iranica Advanced Search • About Iranica • Support Iranica • Contact Us • FAQS ShareThis WOMEN iv. in the works of the Bab and in the Babi Movement The Bab elevated the status of women in his writings and this is confirmed. in his actions. The Babi community Reflected this change in the actions of the Babi women. WOMEN iv. IN THE WORKS OF THE BAB AND MOVEMENT IN THE BABI The Bab elevated the status of women in his writings and this is confirmed. in his actions. The Babi community Reflected this change in the actions of the Babi women. (1) Women in the works of the Bab. (2) Women in the Babi movement. (1) Women in the works of the Bab. Theologically, the Bab regarded God as utterly beyond the reach and knowledge of humanity and he characterised the Primal Will as the locus of the primal manifestation of the Godhead and the fashioner of the creation. This Primal Will is represented by the Maid of Heaven who descends to earth. And in describing this figure, the Bab writes: "I am the Maid of Heaven begotten by the Spirit of Bahā'" (Qayyum al-asmā', p. 52; Saeidi, pp. 152-53). Thus the Bab created a female symbol for the highest spiritual aspect of himself (see also Lawson). In general, the Bab treats women and men equally in the Laws That he Gives. In a number of places, the Bab specifically ameliorates some of the burdens that Islamic law had laid upon women; and so for example, divorce is made ​​more difficult by the imposition of a twelve-month delay (Persian Bayān 6:12), the severe restrictions on their social intercourse is relaxed (Persian Bayān 8:10), and men are ordered not to harm women (Ṣaḥifa Bayn al-Ḥaramayn, p. 82). He orders men to treat women with the utmost love (Ṣaḥifa-ye'Adliya, pp. 32, 38; Saeidi, p. 236). On occasions, the Bab even gives women preference over men; for example, he sets a penalty for anyone who causes grief to another person, which he equates to causing grief to God, but he says that the penalty for causing grief to women is doubled (Persian Bayān 7:18); also, Having laid down the duty of pilgrimage for whoever can afford it, he Exempts women from this obligation Unless they live nearby, so that no hardship shouldnt come upon them on the way (Persian Bayān four eighteen). In many places in his writings, the Bab refers to women as the "possessors of circles" (ulā al-dawā'er; see for example Persian Bayān 4: 5, 7:18, 8: 6). This refers to the Bab's injunction that women carry on them a piece of paper on which is drawn six concentric circles, between which are five lines of Babi scripture. The two numbers, five and six, signifying Howa (He, ie God). Other instructions are also given regarding these circles, but the overall intention is that the circle symbolizes the Sun of Truth (or the Manifestation of God, the term used by the Bab for the figures such as Moses, Jesus, Muhammad and himself) and so the woman carrying it is Constantly Reminded to look for the next Manifestation of God "He Whom God shall make manifest" (Persian Bayān 5:10; Saeidi, pp. from 329 to 31). (2) Women in the Babi movement. Most contemporary accounts agree that one of the main social impacts of the Babi movement was the amelioration of the position of women (see, eg, Momen, pp. 27, 75). Quite apart from what is in his writings, the Bab signalled that his religion would lead to an improvement in the position of women by the support that he gave to his leading female disciple, Qorrat-al-'Ayn. Her radicalism in pushing forward the implications of the claims of the Bab to the point of infracting the precepts of Shi'ism while she was in Karbalā' led another senior Babi, Shaikh Aḥmad Mo'allem-e Ḥeṣāri to complain about her to the Bab in 1846. The Bab wrote back praising Qorrat-al-'Ayn and absolving her of any guilt by giving her the title of Ṭāhera (qv; "the pure one"; quoted in Fāżel Māzandarāni, p. 332). She was also regarded by the Babis as the return of Fātema, the Prophet's daughter, on the basis of what the Bab had written (Persian Bayān 1: 4). She was later to push forward her Radicalism and even to appear unveiled at the conference of Badašt (1848), all with the evident approval of the Bab (Nabil, pp. 292 to 98). During the Babi Upheaval at Zanjān, the British consul , Abbott, visited the scene of the operations and reported to Shiel, the British minister: "They [the Babis] fight in the most obstinate and spirited manner, the women even, of whom several have been killed, engaging in the strife" ( quoted in Momen, p. 11; cf. Nabil, p. 563). During this episode, a latter day Joan of Arc arose in the person of Zaynab, a young Babi girl, who dressed as a man and participated in the fighting with such courage and success that she became the terror of the royal troops and was put in command of one section of the Babi Defences (Nabil, pp. 549-52; Walbridge, pp. three hundred fifty-five to fifty-six). During the Babi Upheaval in Nayriz (one thousand eight hundred fifty), the women Also played an important part; Nabil (p. 487) records: "The uproar caused by their [the Babis'] womenfolk, their amazing audacity and self confidence, utterly demoralized their opponents and paralysed their efforts." It may even be That in the second Neyriz Upheaval (in 1853), the Babi women outnumbered the men, many of Whom Had Been Killed in the first episode. Bibliography: Mehri Afnān, "Maqām e-zan Āṯār dar-e-e Hażrat Noqṭa -ye Ulā wa mašāhir-e zanān dar'ahd-e a'lā, "Ḵušahā-'i az ḵerman-e adab o honar 6, 1995, pp. From 207 to 27. The Bab, al-Qayyum Asmā', ms. dated in 1261, in Afnan Library, Tonbridge, UK. Idem, Persian Bayān, published as Ketāb Mostaṭāb-e-e Bayān, np, nd; EG Browne's summary translation is in Moojan Momen, ed., Selections from the Writings of EG Browne on the Bābi and Bahā'i Religions, Oxford, 1987, pp. 316-406 Idem, Ṣaḥifa-ye'Adliya, np, nd Idem, Ṣaḥifa Bayn al-Ḥaramayn, Cambridge University Library Mss.Or Ms 943. Fāżel Māzandarāni, Tārik e-Ẓohur al-Ḥaqq, vol. 3, np, nd Todd Lawson, "The Authority of the Feminine and Fatima's Place in an Early Work of the