The Problem of Maryam Mirzakhani's Hejab

As part of his tweet of congratulations to Professor Maryam Mirzakhani, President Hassan Rouhani published two photographs of the Stanford professor, one of her wearing a hejab and the other showing her bareheaded.

Mirzakhani was awarded the prestigious Fields Medal on Wednesday, August 13 at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Seoul. Most international media focused on her achievements and career as a mathematician, running clips of her receiving the award in Seoul or publishing a portrait of her from Stanford University’s website. But the Iranian press—like Rouhani perhaps— had something else in mind, seizing the opportunity to bring hejabs back on the agenda. Tehran dailies carried photos of Mirzakhani in hejab, whereas many conservative newspapers, including Keyhan and Vatan e Emrooz, avoided the debate and didn’t show her at all. Well-known reformist paper Shargh and other publications published close-angle shots of Mirzakhani, leaving the reader wondering whether she was adhering to Islamic tradition or not.