Tahirih: Life & Poems of the Great Female Persian Baha'i Poet & Martyr

TAHIRIH (1817-1852). Tahirih (meaning ‘concealed’), also called Qurrat ul-ayn (meaning: ‘freshness of the eye’) was Zarrin Taj Fatima and this extremely beautiful and intelligent woman led a short and stormy life. Born (like Obeyd Zakani) in Qazvin she became a devotee of the Bab, who from Shiraz had given his prophetic message that would later appear in the form of Baha-ul-lah, the founder of the Baha’is and the self-proclaimed Imam Mahdi (Messiah). She was not only a poet but also wrote prose, knew literature, religious laws and interpretations of the Koran and lectured… very unusual for a woman of that time and previous times in Iran. She travelled to Kerbala and Baghdad spreading the message of the Bab. In Baghdad she was arrested by the governor and sent back to Iran. She became the first woman to appear unveiled before a crowd of women and men. She returned to Qazvin after the Bab was killed and was imprisoned in Tehran. She was thirty-six when sentenced to death after the Shah, who had proposed marriage to her, which she rejected was assassinated, leading to a massacre of the Baha’is. She was influenced in her poetry by Rumi, Jami and especially Hafiz whose winebringer masnavi influenced by Nizami greatly influenced hers. All her poems translated here are for the first time in the correct poetic form. Introduction on her Life, Times & Poetry & on the Forms of Poetry she used.