ZAHRA RAHNAVARD

Iranian artist and writer.

Zahra Rahnavard was born into a religious family in Tehran. After graduating from high school, she attended the Tehran Teachers' College, where she obtained a teaching certificate. In the late 1960s, she met Mir-Hosain Musavi, who opposed the regime of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, as she did, and who shared her Islamic values; they married in 1969. Subsequently, she studied at and obtained a master's degree from Tehran University's department of arts. In the early 1970s, she joined the study circle around the Islamist philosopher Ali Shariʿati. In 1976, After Shariʿati was arrested, Rahnavard fled with her two children to the United States, where she became affiliated with the Confederation of Iranian Students, especially with its Islamist faction. She returned to Iran just before the success of the Iranian Revolution and became one of the influential women promoting the cultural, economic, and political programs of the new Islamic Republic, especially during her husband's tenure as prime minister, from 1981 to 1988.

Rahnavard is the author of a number of publications on art, literature, poetry, religion, and politics. Her writings have been translated into Turkish, Arabic, Urdu, and English. Her essays include "The Uprising of Moses," "The Colonial Motives for the Unveiling of Women," "The Beauty of the Veil, and the Veil of Beauty," and "Women, Islam, and Feminism in Imam Khomeini's Thought." Rahnavard has also held several exhibits of her art. Her large sculpture "Mother" is situated prominently in the middle of a busy Tehran square. In the first decade of the revolution, she used her considerable oratorical skills and her talent as a writer to propagate Islamist values in Iran and abroad. She was a founder of the Women's Society of the Islamic Republic and the Islamist Women's Society and editor of Rah-i Zaynab, a popular women's journal. In 1997, Rahnavard joined the reformist camp of President Mohammad Khatami and in 1999 she became president of the influential al-Zahra Women's College in Tehran.

Bibliography

Afary, Janet. "Portraits of two Islamist Women: Escape from Freedom or from Tradition?" Critique 19 (fall 2001): 47 - 77. http://www.answers.com/topic/zahra-rahnavard