Sadiqa Dawlatabadi: Iran's first modern feminist

Information about Dawlatabadi family from Janet Afary

The Iranian Constitutional Revolution, 1906-1911: Grassroots
Democracy, Social Democracy, & the Origins of Feminism
By Janet Afary
Edition: illustrated
Published by Columbia University Press, 1996
ISBN 0231103506, 9780231103503
448 pages

On page 419 of the index, second/right hand column on the bottom, Sadiqah Dawlatabadi is listed under the index heading for AZALI
BABIS

On page 341 of chapter 12, we read,

...we also need to question the direction that the work of historians, as well as public discourse, took with regard to the Constitutional Revolution in subsequent decades....When the names of constitutionalist activists could not be removed, their ideological affiliations were often covered up. Iranian students never learned that a number of leading constitutionalists had Azali Babi [i.e. Bayani, WA] sympathies, among them the two principal orators of the revolution, Malik al-Mutikalimin and Sayyid Jamal al-Din Va'iz Isfahani, the founder of Sur-i-Israfil, Mirza Jahangir Khan Shirazi, and the activist brother and sister Yahya and Sadiqah Dawlatabadi...

On page 45 of chapter 2, we read,

Yahya Dawlatabadi (1861-1839) was the son of Hadi Dawlatabadi, the spiritual head of the Azali Babis in Iran. Publicly Yahya was known as a lay educator, although he also assumed the leadership of the Azali Babi community after his father [note: this last point is universally denied by the Bayani community as being the case, WA].  A poet and committed intellectual with extensive political connections, Yahya Dawlatabadi documented the early stages of the reform movement in Tehran as well as his involvement with elite members of the court and with other reformers in the Ma'arif Anjuman. Dawlatabadi founded three modern schools in Tehran between 1898 and 1899, the Sadat, the Adab, and the Kamaliyah Elementary Schools. Sadat was in many ways the most innovative school, since it educated impoverished boys who, until this time, wrapped green shawls around their bodies, called themselves sayyids (descendents of the prophet Muhammad), and went begging on the streets of Tehran. Dawlatabadi did not admit his Azali Babi affiliations in these memoirs, but described the persecution of the Babis in Yazd and Isfahan and the harrassment endured by his family and many others in Isfahan [Yahya Dawlatabadi, Hayat-i-Yahya, Tehran, 1952, volume 1 of 3, p. 246-247.]
      Dawlatabadi's  account makes it clear that his Azali Babi connections, or, for that matter, the ideological affiliations of other religious dissidents, were often known to the ruling elite and to other members of the 'ulama...Dawlatabadi's Azali Babi ties became a public issue only when financial or political gains could be gained by exposing them [by his political enemies]. His enemies, such as the reformer Sadiq Tabatabai, son of Sayyid Muhammad Tabatabai [a well known British agent, WA], then tried to blackmail him and incite public hysteria against him and his schools by labelling him a Babi and hence unfit to run a school for young Muslim boys....

An excellent article

Wikipedia article written by Baha'is

That article on wikipedia was written by Baha'is. If you go to the discussions of the article, you will see my long, protracted fight with the Baha'i IT committee in amending that skewed Bahai propaganda. Funny, though, that article does not cite any sources that are remotely credible. The majority of the sources are Baha'i sources which are propaganda. Subh-i-Azal had only 5 wives, not 17.  But even if he had 17 wives, so what? Muhammad had 40! There is a silly, Western fundamentalist Christian point of view that wants to make a given holy figure completely oblivious to being human. If one is to take these Western Christian sources about the life of Jesus on face value, then it would stand to reason that the Jesus of the Gospels was possibly a homosexual - i.e.  an unmarried man in 1st century CE Galillea and Judea running around in the desert with twelve other men playing god!

But since recent scholarship and archeology is proving the synoptic Gospels to be works of pure fiction; and the more important discoveries of the Gospel of Thomas in the Nag Hammadi collection, as well as the Dea Sea Scrolls, is proving that as a 1st century rabbi the real Jesus was married, and possibly to the figure known as Mary Magdelene, that theory of the chaste and life-time abstinent Jesus Christ flies out the window for good and the real Yeshua bar Miriam begins to emerge as the real man of the Godhead which he was!  

413

Made in Azalis/Bayanis!!

//bahaisandbritannia.googlepages.com/home

His familly life !

"Later research reports that he had up to seventeen wives including four in Iran and at least five in Baghdad, although it is not clear how many, if any, were simultaneous."

//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subh-i-Azal

E.G. Brown, a Cambridge

E.G. Brown, a Cambridge professor, and one of the few Europeans to meet Bahá’u’lláh, penned this description: “The face of him on whom I gazed I can never forget, though I cannot describe it. Those piercing eyes seemed to read one’s very soul; power and authority sat on that ample brow… no need to ask in whose presence I stood, as I bowed myself before one who is the object of a devotion and love which kings might envy and emperors sigh for in vain!”

Subh-i-Azal's wives = 5

 //bayanic.com/lib/typed/hist/AzalHist/Efamtree.html

1) Badr-i-Jahan 

2) Ruqiyya

3) Maryam (known as Qanita)

4) Mulk-i-Jahan

5) Fatima

And in Persian,

//bayanic.com/lib/typed/hist/AzalHist/Pfamtree.html

That's 5, not 17. Anything else?

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Dear NUR

Before I forget when you make these long comments remember to save them in a word document as text because sometimes i.com freezes and you loose your comment and can't go back. So if you save it you can copy/paste it back.

I understand what you are saying and agree with it. No one knows. We may get rid of Mullahs and end up with a democracy. We may end up with a war and a forced regime change. Anything can happen. Reza Pahlavi may come back. Bahais may come back and one of them be Iran's next leader. Masoud Rajavi may be the next Iranian leader.

Or none of that may happen. The chance that something may happen should not divert us from paying attention to what is happening now and plan for a reasonable future.

If you have issues with Bahai leadership and not rank and file as you've said, you need to make that clear and presented in a way that rank and file people can relate and not get shoed away. I know you've made it clear but it is getting lost and I'd reconsider your approach.

Take MKO for example. I have zero tolerance for M&M. They are responsible for so many attoricities and they are the descendents of good people. Maryam was the wife of (forgot his name) a rebel who died in a gun battle with the IRI regime and became Masoud's wife as soon as he divorced Bani-sadr's young daughter. Horror stories in Iraq another whole subject.

I also have zero tolerance for their mid rank leaders in Camp Ashraf who by Iraqi accounts are respondible for kidnappings, torture and murder. But I have a lot of sympathies for their rank and file even in Camp Ashraf. They made a huge mistake and now their lives is forever ruined.

Same can be said about Bahais (although I don't agree) if you think the exact one-to-one comparison can be made.

As for JJ he has made his past well known to all of us. He has also made his present well known too. As such I give him the benefit of the doubt. I believe some of the things he currently does are the residual effects of his past (anti-dodes) and in time they may go away.

This article is very

This article is very interesting. I really don't think it is major importance what this ladys faith was.But if she was Bayani it is good to be said.
I didn't know about the Bayani's.
I thought there was the Bhai's and the Babi's, but personally Ididn't know any Babis. It is very good to learn.
I read on some article her,I don't remeber where maybe yours,the many Bahai sects and the arguments and disgreements by who is going to be leader after Shougi Effendi between the groups.
Everything we learn each day is good.
I'm sorry about my English.

This is funny

Definitely B and NUR are the same person. NUR or B please tell us if 17 wives is true or not? Don't be shy about it. If not, how many?

So funny LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL

Definitely B and NUR are the same person. NUR or B please tell us if 17 wives is true or not? Don't be shy about it. If not, how many? What a playboy Azal in fact was. I bet you he may have had only one or two wives when Bab made him his successor. Then he goes on hiding in his haramsara behind his women and children so no harms be upon him. As some one asked NUR here please answer the questions of the readers not yourself (B). NUR you have definitely made a full of yourself in Iranian.com you may go hide like your beloved Azal. BTW, thanks for making us laugh this last two weeks we needed that.

Paradox

"So, talking about Bahais persecuting others is a little like an oxy-moron."

It is, and the word you're looking for is also paradoxical. But that's how reality works. Things never unfold in any linear trajectory or are predictable in any logical, map-able sense. Tell me, in 1977 who would've thought that in less than two years the Shah would be out and Iran would become an Islamic Republic ruled by Khomeini?? Who would've thought 30 years ago that the Islamic republic would even last this long?! But it has! Who would've thought in 1999 that a complete imbecile would win the Republican Party's nomination a year later and find himself president soon after that, even though he actually lost the election to the guy who won? Who would've thought of the concept of commerical aircraft being rammed into skyscrapers in NYC by accused parties who had no  known knowledge or experience of flying sophisticated machines such as these aircrafts into buildings - and without any pre-flight calibration of navigation equipment to guide them to their target? Who would've thought that this event of 911 would then be turned into the convenient pretext of progressively shutting down all civil and political rights and liberties in Western democratic societies under the excuse of some fictitious "war on terror"? Who would've thought in 1999-2000 when we as a people came within inches of overthrowing the mullahs, that ten years later they'd still be around, even worse than before, and that the real opposition would be all but internally discredited, no thanks to George Bush's reckless foreign policy adventurism in Iraq and the rest of the Mid East that helped galvanize the mullahs back home and convince the majority of the population of Iran that opposition to the mullahs meant that Iran would be invaded and be turned into a second Iraq?  Who would've thought that these Western powers would actually end up helping - rather than harming - the mullahs for the past 8 years? Who would've thought of the election of Barack HUSSEIN Obama (God bless him)? Who would've thought that American policy makers and economic specialists would allow the existence of the sub-prime mortgage (pseudo-lending) industry that has been the main factor that has spun the world economy into a tail-spin looking over a precipice of certain doom and destruction? Who would've thought that there are actors actually waiting in the wings, and presently playing and manipulating behind the scenes to take the global economy down all the way in order to thoroughly destroy the middle class who would pose any real threat to them, so that they can then foist upon us all everywhere a New World Order with a totalitarian One World Government that would include only two classes: the minority elite and the majority slaves? ETC ETC ETC...

Who would've thought indeed!

In short, people don't think, even when the signs are there, because they are not thought to think for themselves and outside of the boxes of convention, herd mentalities and popular consensus realities - which is always usually wrong - until after the fact when it's already too late. In the 1960s and early 1970s there were a handful of people screaming at the top of their lungs about the danger that Khomeini and his ideology posed to the future of Iran. No one in the opposition at the time listened to them. In fact they dismissed these righteous, visionary people as cranks or agent provocateurs of SAVAK, or outright lunatics! Look what happened. The very same people who were once dismissing the insights of individuals who were pointing out the utter insanity of making Ruhollah Khomeini the leader of an anti-Shah coalition ended up being some of the first people who became victims to Khomeini's guile. Where are the Sadeq Ghotbzadehs, Bani Sadrs, Massoud Rajavis, the Daryush and Parvaneh Foruhars, or all the rest of those idiots in the National Front (jebhe melli), like Sanjabi and co., who sided with the same internal reactionary forces of treachery who had been responsible for toppling them from power under Mossadeq twenty-five years earlier? The examples to be cited in Iran's case are endless. But these are solid lessons of history, and if we all don't learn from them now, we are doomed to repeat them again, this time by replacing an Islamist fascist theocracy with a Baha'i one!

 As for the Editor of Iranian.com, I have known JJ in real life when we were both at the University of Mexico in the early 1990s, and he never struck me as someone with uncompromising committment to truth, integrity, fair play and general probity. Whatever direction his bread is being buttered today, he will jump and leap-frog that way. And, lest we forget, this site is actually a business after all. Today it is the Baha'is; yesterday it was the mullahs; tomorrow who knows! I guess in the industry he works in, you have to be that way in order to survive. So, in a sense, being exiled by this sort  is confirmation to me that we are actually on the right track. And herein is a demonstration of a paradox in action!

413

Light

"why a blog who is about a progressive Iranian woman is being messed up ?"

First of all the blog is not messed up. It is detailed. Second, I for one post on newer blogs from NUR because the belog section is messed up! With so many one line or one photo or one Youtube clip blogs, a blog one posts in a weekend goes to the 2nd page (infamy) in one day.

Since NUR's blogs are not featured and the Editor has exiled him into the belog section, I post on his newer blogs to keep the discussion new.

There is a lot I've learned and read through communications with NUR in the last week or so. As I said many of these stuff and links read like a novel and I like history and novels.

It is fascinating!

Bayani community in Iran

NUR I had missed your other blog:

//iranian.com/main/blog/nur/bayani-commun...

It is interesting. Do you have a link to a larger size of the photo you posted? The way they hung the picture frames of their elders is typical of large Iranian families or communities with a history to tell.

If you go to some old families you even see a family tree framed going back several generations. Especially in a city or town other than Tehran. Sometimes the city itself goes back several generations to the people who first inhabited that city.

Nur read the comments, I mean not the ones from you to you!

Do you ever wonder as why none of them are for what you say? why a blog who is about a progressive Iranian woman is being messed up ? well the reason is that we should see our true self in the reactions of other people. just like a mirror who never lies.

NUR your approach

NUR is it up to you on however you want to present yourself. Have a sit, sit down and sit your ass down all mean the same.

True or false, actually true, Bahais are being prosecuted in Iran. So, talking about Bahais persecuting others is a little like an oxy-moron. If there are historical facts then that should be the topic of discussion. If their leadership are up to no good then their actions and comments should be exposed, not simple slogans of Bahais are a fascist cult and so on.

If you have a crusade against them then may I suggest contributing to wikepedia and refute what they have to say and make them know such historical references exist.

I for one did not know Bahaullah had an elder step brother and there was a bloody battle. I didn't know about Bayanis and now I know. I didn't know about factions in Bahais and now I know. I know these because I asked despite your approach.

I brought up Shiite and Sunnis example to give a perspective of how this could shape up and get out of hand. Innocent people getting killed over a last name or religious affiliation.

Neither Bahais nor Bayanis will ever gain power until there is democracy and human rights for everyone in Iran. Even if there is democracy in Iran is is very difficult for a small minority to rise up and get the power. Look at America and how long it took and under what circumstances until a black man became a president. And African-Americans are a far larger minority than Bahais or Bayanis in Iran. I hope we have Bahai and Bayani presidents one day.

I wish the Editor had acknowledged this woman as a Bayani and featured the blog. Looks like the reference to her religion was in the blog's summary section not in the article itself. Every culture and religion has their icons who they are proud of. We should acknowledge them and their contribution. Perhaps if your approach was different but in this case I fault the Editor.

I still have my questions and you didn't answer them so if we pick this up again I'll ask them again. This is like reading a novel to me. A lot of Mirza people during Qajar and Iran being wild wild west of our time with booze and women and power struggles.

This is a very good find

This is a very good research work. The credit, if there is any, goes to Mr. Nur for sure. Homan

Shariah in England

Stop bad mouthing the Brits, shariah is coming to England. Bring your own attire.

Oh forgot to sign again, forget who is who!

Bahai Tactics & Techniques: CAUTION NON-BAHAIS

See,
Baha'is In My Backyard
//video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2877478116441126906&hl=en-AU

-

Also see,
Recent court victory by the Orthodox Baha'is (OBF = Orthodox Baha'i Faith), and the suit brought by the Haifan Bahaim organization against them:
//trueseeker.typepad.com/true_seeker/court_case.html
and
//www.truebahai.info/court/139-opinion.pdf  (judge's actual
decision)
Note particularly,
//www.ca7.uscourts.gov/tmp/LF1FFZY0.mp3

-
BAHAI Tactics & Techniques - CAUTION NON-BAHAIS

"Slanderous Vilification" = The Baha'i Technique - Ad Hominem, Libel, Slander, Demonize, Scapegoat, Ostracize, Shun, Banish, Backbite, Defame, Vilify, Discredit, Smear, Revile, Suppress, Attack, Bully, Intimidate, Threaten, Malign, Blackball, Deceive, Coerce, Silence, Harass... etc., etc....  CAUTION NON-BAHAIS

1. As far as possible they hold back from responding
2. Then they claim no knowledge of the given issue by feigning
ignorance
3. After the exposer has exposed they will try to divert to secondary
and totally peripheral and irrelevent side-issues
4. The exposer is then painted as someone with an axe to grind,
biased, deluded (while they, the bahaim, still have not responded to
the main issue exposed)
5. Next they relate mental instability and insanity to the exposer,
i.e. shoot the messenger
6. Then, the last tactic, is to wheel out several dubious personas on
the scene who claim to be neutral non-bahai observers who then begin attacking the exposer as well as the issue exposed and supporting the bahais and their issues as so-called non-bahais

-

Also see S.G. Wilson,
BAHAISM AND RELIGIOUS ASSASSINATION The Muslim World vol. 4, issue 4, 1914
&
BAHAISM AND RELIGIOUS DECEPTION The Muslim World, Volume 5, Issue 2, 1914-1915.
at,
//wahidazal66.googlepages.com/babidocuments%28westernsources%29

And, BAHAISM AND THE BRITISH,
//bahaisandbritannia.googlepages.com/home

==CAUTION NON-BAHAIS==

now hiring fictious persons for sect fabrication no experience

needed will train.

Actually someone already mentioned that N is a WOMAN and B who features himself from A to Z is the kar-chagh-kon.
B's job is to lead people on by providing readers digest and direction so we can all come to the conclusion that these morons intend for us.

Dumb and Dumber sectual production.

Sadiqa Dawlatabadi was a Bayani: a testament to Baha'i hypocrisy

The Baha'is have a bee in their bonnet about admitting this woman's true religious beliefs and affiliations, probably because it reveals them as the do-nothings and hypocrites that they are vis-a-vis the women's suffragette movement in Iran. First of all, Sadiqa was the daughter of Hajji Muhammad Hadi Dawlatabadi, i.e. the putative successor of Subh-i-Azal. Second, she was the sister of Yahya Dawlatabadi, i.e. the putative successor of his father. That side of the Dawlatabadi family privately mainainted their Bayani religious affiliation throughout their lives. Hadi, Yahya and Sadiqa were all buried according to the rites of the Bayan. When the mullahs desecrated their graves in 1980 they specifically instanced the fact that they were Babis (i.e. Bayanis) - and lest anyone missed it, let me reiterate it again, their graves were dug up and desecrated not for being Baha'is or Muslims but for being Babis!  

 A clear testament to the hypocrisy of the Baha'is here is they are quite ready to falsify history and advertise everywhere that Tahirih Qurra'tul-'Ayn was one of their own - despite the fact that Baha'ism did not exist in 1852 when she was martyred and that Qurra'tu'l-'Ayn was a Babi/Bayani leader and Letter of the Living. But when it comes to a figure such as Sadiqa Dawlatabadi, they then want to gratuitously hide behind disengenuous nationalistic platitudes and dismiss Sadiqa Dawlatabadi's religious affiliations as unimportant and not worthy of mention. This is the depth of the sort of disengenuity and deception that is the animating pivot of all things Baha'i.

As for the individual who claimed her a Muslim, show us your evidence. Second, wikipedia as mentioned before is a discredited portal of deliberate misinformation where through an organized internet committee taskforce of the Baha'i administraiton these people regularly  rig and manipulate all articles even with the most distant and remote relevance to their creed with narratives and myths of their own ahistorical propaganda. 

As for fools, the biggest fools here or anywhere are the mindless cult apologists of historical whitewash and falsification, i.e. the defenders of the Haifan Baha'i organization with its  fictious and contrived pseudo-historical, mythical narratives.

As for my method, as I mentioned before, I am on a crusade to expose the Haifan Bahai organization as a dangerous, power hungry Stalinist cult, and as such I do not pull my punches with these fascists.

413

Multiple wives

One thing I don't approve of is multiple wives by present and old messiahs. I mean the first thing you do when you become a messiah is to have multiple wives?! WTF?! This appears to be the common denominator for ALL religious figures, old and new, present day new in 2008-2009.

I don't mean to insult people's beliefs but this sucks.

How many wives Bahaola had?

Mirza Yahya had 17 wives, that's right.
How many wives Mirza Husainali Naari had?
I have heard he had 5 wives legally and some slave girls. is that true?

Moral of the story

I think the Moral of the story is that if the Editor has NOT heard of her, she does NOT exist. She is a figment of imagination, thus not worthy!

A lot of heart o poort about women and minorities but if there is one that I don't know about then, let's hide it under the rug because it is embarassing?

Sadiqa Dawlatabadi was a mozlem!

How a feminist can be successor of someone like Subh-i-Azal who have been married with 17 women!!!Just check it at wikipedia.
Btw, I cant see that this article has mentioned anything about this woman's faith.

//www.iisg.nl/collections/dowlatabadi.php

Sadiqa Dawlatabadi was a mozlem/modern mozlem woman.

To JJ

JJ, I hope this blog is not Anti-Bahai and it must be featured. This is Iranian.com and this Blog deserved to be featured.

JJ - this Blog must be featured !

Dear JJ
This blog must be featured. Many of our iranians are not aware of her station.
Hope you will consider our request.
Thanks in advance

Reader ,

Let me do the introductions:Ok, reader meet Nur( an azali) and "B" a Hojatiyeh they share the hate towards bahais. Nur hates them and "B" is using him to do his dirthy job.I hope this makes things clear for you.

Reader

Reader where in the blog does it say her religious affiliation? I didn't see it.

I just mentioned the feature question and it is up to the Editor. This isn't a pissing contest. If the Editor believes on the occasion of Women's Day this woman (among many others) deserve recognition and rememberance the least he can do is feature it. If not then NUR's behavior is irrelevant.

This article was published as an article which has a higher standard and threshold than blogs. Technically this would've been better as a blog.

//iranian.com/main/2009/jan/true-story

So what happened to Zion's behavior? Is she all kind and things? I think her Zion account is blocked.

B

I think this blog was not featured because NUR has made a fool of himself on this site, not so much for what he is saying but the way he is saying it. Too many blogs in a short time and long and angry comments. People only pay attention when someone has a more balanced approach to sharing his/her views, even if they are of a religious and propaganda nature.

Mrs. Dowlatabadi was a national treasure and her efforts influenced and benefitted a nation, not just the religious faith she followed.

It would be so much better for her name and her memory to be cherished devoid of religious affiliations, as this could be a turnoff to most people. Why don't you nominate her as Iranian of the Day by submitting her photograph and biography to the site editor, leaving out the religious stuff? I have seen many great deceased Iranians featured and remembered as Iranian of the day before.