BS: Baha'i faith: what about the women?

Subject: BS: Baha'i faith: what about the women?
From: keberoxu
Date: 04 Jul 22 - 01:43 PM

Anyone for whom the subject of "holiness"
is offensive, you might want to avoid this thread.

The Baha'i faith will be two hundred years old
at some time during the 2040's,
and I doubt I will be here to see the bicentennial.

The leading figure of this new religion,
known as Baha'u'llah, engaged his family in sustaining the faith.
This includes a son and a daughter.
The son, Abbas Effendi or Abdu'l Baha, is prominent in the faith,
as he toured the world promoting the Baha'i Cause
after his emancipation as a 'prisoner of conscience'.

His sister, born Fatimih Sultan Nuri,
made herself, by choice,
the Oriental equivalent of a consecrated virgin;
the names by which she is best known are
Bahiyyih Khanum   -- essentially, 'Lady Gloria' --
or
Varaqiy-i-'Ulya, the "Greatest Holy Leaf" [of the divine Tree, is implied].

When she died in the early 1930's, an English-speaking confidante
wrote this memorial tribute: not a life story, but a portrait of holiness.

Subject: RE: BS: Baha'i faith: what about the women?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 04 Jul 22 - 02:17 PM

That tribute is a great illustration of hagiography.

Subject: RE: BS: Baha'i faith: what about the women?
From: keberoxu
Date: 04 Jul 22 - 02:21 PM

Spot on, Stilly, and sagely (ouch) observed.
It reminds me in more ways than one
of descriptions of saints.

Subject: RE: BS: Baha'i faith: what about the women?
From: meself
Date: 04 Jul 22 - 02:37 PM

So ... What is the question - "What About the Women?" - supposed to be getting at?

Subject: RE: BS: Baha'i faith: what about the women?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 04 Jul 22 - 02:42 PM

I don't know about the official pecking order, but it's clear to me that one woman is the person who makes things work in our local Baha'i congregation. I took a very good racial healing class from them a couple of years ago.
-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Baha'i faith: what about the women?
From: keberoxu
Date: 04 Jul 22 - 03:47 PM

My apologies to those reading this thread
who already know all about this question.
Other older threads exists at the Mudcat about the Baha'i faith,
including posts regarding Iran, the birthplace of the Baha'i faith,
where the adherents have been viciously persecuted from the beginning
(the religion still exists because one founder was banished into exile).

It's a question of practicing what they preach.
From the time of the leader, Baha'u'llah,
the scriptures have stressed equality of gender.

In actual practice, the women are expected to work as hard as the men,
and the men get an awful lot more publicity than the women.
That's a bit of an euphemistic understatement actually.

When Baha'u'llah's successors died out in one hereditary line
(the other relatives having been pushed aside, authority-wise),
the power and authority in the Baha'i Faith went to an institution:
the Universal House of Justice, in Haifa, Israel.

Only one hitch:
the nine Justices, by old decree, must all be MEN.

I've got an opinion about that, but I won't dwell.

Subject: RE: BS: Baha'i faith: what about the women?
From: meself
Date: 04 Jul 22 - 04:08 PM

Okay, thanks.

Subject: RE: BS: Baha'i faith: what about the women?
From: keberoxu
Date: 06 Jul 22 - 09:15 PM

This beautiful statue shows a devout Muslim woman stripping the veil away from her face and liberating herself from the oppression symbolized by the veil. The sculptor is Fuad Abdurahmanov.

While this statue has a universal identity and is not limited to the representation of any specific lady in a particular time and place,
it could serve to introduce "Tahirah".

You know that a faith like the Baha'i Faith, for which many died,
is going to have at least one woman martyr.
Tahirah is the outstanding example of the woman who dies for her beliefs.
She was put to death by a form of public stoning,
preceded by a strangling which may or may not have mercy-killed her first.
It is not known if her body was recovered or enshrined afterwards.
This happened in Iran around the year 1848.

Her legend has been famous ever since.

This Arabic word, Tahirah, I believe means purity.

She had other names,
like her birthname,
Fatimih Baraghani;
also,
Qurratu'l-'Ayn.

Subject: RE: BS: Baha'i faith: what about the women?
From: keberoxu
Date: 07 Jul 22 - 08:19 AM

Hagiography alert!

The memorial tribute, linked in this post, to
Tahirih, or Tahirah,

was written by a Baha'i leader.
The story of her life includes
how Tahirah was given sanctuary by Baha'u'llah himself in his home,
before he was sentenced himself with banishment.

Subject: RE: BS: Baha'i faith: what about the women?
From: keberoxu
Date: 17 Jul 22 - 08:49 PM

Check out this brief biography of an Iranian lady Baha'i, born in 1889.

By whatever name you know her
(difficult to render in the Western alphabet),
she sounds like a ball of fire.

Ghodsieh Ashraf
or
Qudsiyyih Ashraf
or
Ghodsea Ashraf
or
Qodsiya Maryam Asraf

... you get the idea ...