Táhirih
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Táhirih (Arabic: "The Pure One") or Qurratu'l-`Ayn (Arabic: قرة العين "Comfort of the Eyes") are both titles of Fátimih Baraqání (b. 1814-1820, d. 1852), an influential poet and theologian of the Bábí faith. As a prominent Bábí she is highly regarded by Bahá'ís and Bayanis, and often mentioned in Bahá'í literature as an example of courage in the struggle for women's rights.
Her date of birth is uncertain, as birth records were destroyed at her execution
Before becoming a Bábí
The daughter of Mulla Muhammad Salih Baraghani, a mulla, Táhirih grew up in Qazvin (near Tehran), where she married her cousin Muhammad ibn Muhammad Taqi at the age of thirteen (?). Having acquired a religious education from her father, she began a correspondence with leaders of the Shaykhi movement which flourished in the Shi'i shrine cities in Iraq. Ultimately she traveled there herself.She is equally well-known under an alternate religious title "Qurratu'l-`Ayn", given to her by the second Shaykhi leader, Siyyid Kázim of Rasht. After his death in 1844, she, through correspondence, found and accepted Ali Muhammad of Shiraz (called the Báb or "gateway" after a Shi'i theological concept), the founder of the Bábi Faith, as the Mahdi. She was the seventeenth disciple or "Letter of the Living" of the Báb, and the only woman in that group, and thus she is sometimes been compared to Mary Magdelene in that aspect. Unlike the other Letters of the Living, Qurratu'l-`Ayn never met the Báb.
As a Bábí
Upon returning to Iran at her family's order, she separated informally (Enc. of Islam says "divorced") from her husband, whose family was hostile to the Báb and His mission, as well as her four children. While she was in Qazvin, her uncle, Mulla Muhammad Taqi Baraghani, was murdered, and the blame for this placed on her (it being assumed that she had encouraged one of her entourage to carry out the deed). Baraghani had been an inveterate enemy of Shaykh Ahmad al-Ahsa'i and the first 'alim to condemn him as an unbeliever. During Qurratu'l-`Ayn's stay in Qazvin, Baraghani had embarked on a series of sermons in which he attacked the Báb and his followers. There is no hard evidence as to the identity of the murderer, nor any proof as to Qurratu'l-`Ayn's involvement or lack of it. It was this event that led to her being taken to Tehran and placed there under house arrest.
Conference of Badasht
After the Báb's arrest in 1848, Táhirih attended a conference of Bábí leaders in Badasht. She is perhaps best remembered for appearing in public without her veil in the course of this conference. It was at the Badasht conference that she was given the title Táhirih (Bahá'í sources indicate by Bahá'u'lláh) which means "the Pure One" or "Virginial".
Death of Táhirih
One of her most notable quotes is her deathbed utterance, "You can kill me as soon as you like, but you cannot stop the emancipation of women."
With the virtual extermination of the Bábi movement in the early 1850's, Táhirih was martyred in her early to mid 30's in 1852 in the garden of Ilkhani in Tehran. (A prominent Bábí, and subsequently Bahá'í, historian cites the wife of an officer who had the chance to know her that she was strangled by a drunken officer of the government with her own veil which she had chosen for her anticipated martyrdom. Afterwords her body was thrown into a well located in the garden.)
A note on sources
With the exception of an entry in the Encyclopedia of Islam (under "Kurrat al-'Ayn"), English-language sources are almost exclusively Bahá'í, or reliant on Bahá'í material. These consist of narrative accounts of her life (typically devotional in character) and, in a few cases, translations of poetry selections.
References
External links
- [Directory of Táhirih's Arabic and Persian writings at h-net]
- [Translation of Táhirih's poetry to English by Martha Root]
- [Táhirih] - Táhirih's biographical entry from Memorials of the Faithful by `Abdu'l-Bahá
- ["Tahirih Thealogy: Female Cosmic Christ Spirit of the Age", by Starr* Saffa]
- [Women in the Bahá'í Faith] - excerpted from Religion and Women by Dr. Susan S. Maneck
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