against them. A deadly clash resulted and the Bàbìs
dispersed in different directions. Pitched battles
raged between the Bàbìs and government forces
between 1848 and 1850 in the Iranian province of
Màzandaràn and in the cities of Zanjàn and Nay-
rìz. ¢àhirih remained in hiding, moving from vil-
lage to village until she was captured in 1848. She
was sent to Tehran where she was imprisoned in the
house of the chief of police. Here as elsewhere, she
was able to hold meetings with the leading women
of the city. Among them was Shams-i Fitnih, a
Qàjàr princess and the granddaughter of Fat™≠Alì
Shàh, who became an ardent Bàbìand later one of
the earliest Bahà±ìs (Màzandarani 1969, 6:412–14).
In 1852, following an abortive attempt on the life
of the Shah, a general massacre of Bàbìs ensued in
which ¢àhirih fell victim. While male Bàbìleaders
were executed publicly in a brutal manner, ¢àhirih
was taken in secret to a garden and strangled.
Bahà±ìsources quote her last words to have been:
“You can kill me as soon as you like, but you can-
not stop the emancipation of women” (Shoghi
Effendi 1944, 75).Women in the writings of
Bàhà±u±llàh
The writings of Bahà±u±llàh proclaim, “In this
Day the Hand of divine grace hath removed all dis-
tinction. The Servants of God and His handmaid-
ens are regarded on the same plane.” He states that
differences between the sexes are the result of “vain
imaginings” and “idle fancies,” which his revela-
tion dispels (1986, 2). However, like the Qur±àn,
the Kitàb-i-Aqdas, containing Bahà±ìsacred law, is
written in Arabic, a language that uses the male
gender for the collective, and most of its laws are
written as if addressed to men. This androcentric
view, which a cursory reading of the text gives, is
not, it should be recognized, the manner in which
Bahà±ìs have understood the greater part of the
Aqdas. Whereas the Aqdasappeared to allow
bigamy, ≠Abdu±l-Bàhà, Bahà±u±llàh’s successor, in-
sisted that conditions of equity could not be met for
two wives; therefore monogamy alone was permis-
sible (Aqdas, 209). Shoghi Effendi, who led the
Bahà±ìcommunity as Guardian between 1921 and
1957, stated that in most cases the laws in the
Aqdasapplied equally to men and women except
when context made this impossible. Only in the
case of membership in the Universal House of
Justice has the male oriented language been taken
literally.
When read within the context of nineteenth-cen-
tury Iran, the Kitàb-i Aqdaspresents some startling
contrasts to the norms of male-female relations.16 bahà±ìwomen
The concept of ritual uncleanliness is absent, and it
is optional for women to perform the usual obliga-
tory prayers or fast during their menses. While
chastity is enjoined on men and women alike, no
special attention is given to controlling the sexual-
ity of women. In contrast to the harsher penalties
for adultery found in both Judaism and Islam, adul-
terers are subject to a fine (Aqdas, 47).
While Bahà±u±llàh’s Arabic writings necessitated
the use of the male gender when referring to God,
those in Persian have no gender. However, thus far,
references to God have been translated using the
male gender regardless of the original language.
Perhaps more interesting concerning the issue of
gender in the Bahà±u±llàh’s writings is the symbol of
the Heavenly Maiden or the ™ùrì. In the Qur±ànic
vision of paradise, black-eyed damsels or ™ùrìs are
thought to serve its inmates. Within the Bahà±ìcon-
text of fulfilled eschatology, the ™ùrìcomes to sym-
bolize the Holy Spirit, the personification of
Bahà±u±llàh’s revelation and the vehicle through
which he receives it. His initial revelation in the
dungeon of the Sìyàh Chàl consisted of a vision of
this maiden who informed him of his divine mis-
sion. She appears frequently in Bahà±u±llàh’s later,
mystical works where this feminine theophany has
a symbiotic relationship with Bahà±u±llàh and is
ultimately inseparable from him (Walbridge 1996,
158–65).From East to West
When the Bahà±ìFaith was introduced to Amer-
ica after 1893, women played a prominent role,
outnumbering male converts by two to one. Bahà±ì
administrative institutions initially included women.
However, when Iranian Bahà±ìteachers arranged
for the election of the Chicago House of Justice,
they insisted that only men were eligible. When
Corinne True wrote to ≠Abdu±l-Bahàasking for clar-
ification ≠Abdu±l-Bahàreplied that the House of
Justice, “according to the explicit text of the Law of
God, is confined to men, this for a wisdom of the
Lord God’s, which will ere long be made manifest
as clearly as the sun at high noon.” Seven years later
≠Abdu±l-Bahàruled that this exclusion applied only
to the as yet unformed Universal House of Justice
and allowed women in America to serve on local
bodies (Maneck 1994, 223–5).From West to East
The introduction of the Bahà±ìFaith to America
had a profound effect on the position of Bahà±ì
women in Iran, through correspondence, through
Western Bahà±ìs who traveled to Iran, and through
receiving talks given by ≠Abdu±l-Bahàin America.