The Calling: Tahirih of Persia And Her Contemporary American Women
The Calling: Tahirih of Persia And Her Contemporary American Women
- 2nd ed.
- n.p. Hussein Ahdieh & Hillary Chapman 2022
In the mid-1800s, powerful spiritual movements swept across two dissimilar countries: the United States and Persia. Faith-filled women helped propel these movements as workers, motivators, instigators, and leaders. This book seeks to introduce one such extraordinary woman of faith who arose in Persia during that period, Tahirih of Qazvin. In the Shi’a Muslim kingdom of Persia, the great spiritual upheaval began with two distinguished clerics who taught that the day had arrived when a great redeemer would arise to purify Islam. Many of their students came to believe that this prophecy was realized in the figure of Siyyid Ali Muhammad, titled ‘the Bab,’ meaning the ‘Gate,’ a Shi’a theological term referring to the chosen intermediary between the promised redeemer who lived in a state of hiding and the body of the faithful. The Bab later went far beyond this initial prophecy by claiming to be both the bringer of a new Divine revelation and the forerunner of a second Divine messenger who was soon to follow. News of his claims and knowledge of his teachings spread rapidly throughout Persia and Iraq, aided greatly by the extraordinarily gifted mystic, teacher, and poet, Tahirih, from the city of Qazvin in Persia. Tahirih’s orientation was fundamentally mystical. The mystic’s goal is to be re-united with God, the ‘Beloved.’ To draw closer to Him, the mystic must walk a path on which she engages in specific spiritual practices and disciplines. She will first feel an intense love for her Beloved, then a deep awareness of the Divine ordering of all things, and finally, the ecstasy of reunion with the Divine and becoming something eternal, far beyond the self.
9798796425695
Tahirih Qurrat al-‘Ayn
History--Babism
Letters of the Living--Babism
In the mid-1800s, powerful spiritual movements swept across two dissimilar countries: the United States and Persia. Faith-filled women helped propel these movements as workers, motivators, instigators, and leaders. This book seeks to introduce one such extraordinary woman of faith who arose in Persia during that period, Tahirih of Qazvin. In the Shi’a Muslim kingdom of Persia, the great spiritual upheaval began with two distinguished clerics who taught that the day had arrived when a great redeemer would arise to purify Islam. Many of their students came to believe that this prophecy was realized in the figure of Siyyid Ali Muhammad, titled ‘the Bab,’ meaning the ‘Gate,’ a Shi’a theological term referring to the chosen intermediary between the promised redeemer who lived in a state of hiding and the body of the faithful. The Bab later went far beyond this initial prophecy by claiming to be both the bringer of a new Divine revelation and the forerunner of a second Divine messenger who was soon to follow. News of his claims and knowledge of his teachings spread rapidly throughout Persia and Iraq, aided greatly by the extraordinarily gifted mystic, teacher, and poet, Tahirih, from the city of Qazvin in Persia. Tahirih’s orientation was fundamentally mystical. The mystic’s goal is to be re-united with God, the ‘Beloved.’ To draw closer to Him, the mystic must walk a path on which she engages in specific spiritual practices and disciplines. She will first feel an intense love for her Beloved, then a deep awareness of the Divine ordering of all things, and finally, the ecstasy of reunion with the Divine and becoming something eternal, far beyond the self.
9798796425695
Tahirih Qurrat al-‘Ayn
History--Babism
Letters of the Living--Babism