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Zhinia Noorian Biography

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“The Thousand and One Nights" draws on a sea of pre-existing legends, from lands stretching from Egypt to China. But the name “Shahrazad” is Persian, and as folklorist Maria Tatar explains, the material she conveys “made its way from Persian to Arabic manuscripts in the second half of the eighth century CE.” Reportedly, Shahrazad has a library of a thousand books, knows all their stories, and weaves them together like a classic bard. The tyrant who reportedly commands her love while threatening her life is a typical ancient warlord, who assumes that mercy is weakness. In countering his murderous egotism, she wields the power of myth and the beauty of empathy. Azar Nafisi explains it as a kind art therapy: “the heroine … must rely on ‘woman’s guile’ to survive a madman’s clutches. She turns his nights with her into an unfolding drama, spinning a spell of fantasy that finally restores his sanity.” In her survey of female heroes throughout history, "The Heroine with 1,001 Faces" (2021), Maria Tatar describes this sort of spell-casting as a chief characteristic of women’s art: “it gradually dawned on me that the heroines [of most folk stories] were habitually bent on social missions, trying to rescue, restore, or fix things, with words as their only weapons,” Maybe that is the ultimate function of all these legendary Persian “romances,” and the main goal of women’s popular folklore through the centuries.”

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Book:Mother Persia: Women in Iran's History
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“… many elements in these [traditional Islamic] laws are neither defensible on Islamic grounds nor tenable under contemporary conditions; not only are they contrary to the egalitarian spirit of Islam, they are invoked to deny Muslim women justice and dignified choices in life. … the provisions of the CEDAW [Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women] are more in line with the Shari’ah than are the provisions of family laws in many contemporary Muslim countries. -- Ziba Mir-Hosseini”

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Book:Mother Persia: Women in Iran's History
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“As a male taxi driver in Tehran complained, “Women no longer know their place, and they have disoriented us men too. They are taking our place everywhere: in the universities, the ministries, on the streets. Wherever you turn, there are aggressive women ready to push you aside. You are lucky if they don’t trample you under their feet.”

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“In popular Islam as most Iranians know it, various female saints are deeply revered, and spiritual women are well respected. Their powers, however, seem to be personal, not institutional. Female leaders are seen as inspirational, but not authoritative. Male clerics are generally accepted as the definers of religion, but probably most people’s actual values and world views are more shaped by their mothers or grandmothers. ... As in popular religion almost everywhere, loving care, personal aspiration, and moral decency are usually better respected than institutional authority.”

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Book:Mother Persia: Women in Iran's History
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“Another female star of the pre-modern age was “Mulla Fatemeh” Naghai, a performer of music and poetry for the Zand dynasty court in Shiraz during the 1700s. This woman gave public concerts outside the Vakil bazaar, playing the lute, harp, tambourine, and reed pipe, and she could recite over 20,000 verses of classical or contemporary poetry from memory. She was an outspoken critic of clerical hypocrisy and of bigotry in general, demanding justice for the powerless both in the court and on stage.”

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Book:Mother Persia: Women in Iran's History
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“In many languages such as Arabic or French, everything seems to have gender. As the name-givers have sexuality, so does everything they name, be it the sun, the moon, the fatherland, or God. Verbs and pronouns vary by gender, and it’s embarrassing to say them wrong. Some advocates of sexual equality suggest reforming language, so that people can be mentioned without gender-stereotyped labels. But various languages are already like that, and one of them is Persian.”

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