Iranian Women You Should Know: Shams ol-Moluk Mosahab

Global and Iranian history are both closely intertwined with the lives and destinies of prominent figures. Every one of them has laid a brick on history’s wall, sometimes paying the price with their lives, men and women alike. Women have been especially influential in the last 200 years, writing much of contemporary Iranian history.

In Iran, women have increased public awareness about gender discrimination, raised the profile of and improved women’s rights, fought for literacy among women, and promoted the social status of women by counteracting religious pressures, participating in scientific projects, being involved in politics, influencing music, cinema... And so the list goes on.

This series aims to celebrate these renowned and respected Iranian women. They are women who represent the millions of women that influence their families and societies on a daily basis. Not all of the people profiled in the series are endorsed by IranWire, but their influence and impact cannot be overlooked. These articles are biographical stories that consider the lives of influential women in Iran.

IranWire readers are invited to send in suggestions for how we might expand the series. Contact IranWire via email ([email protected]), on Facebook, or by tweeting us.

 

This article was written by a citizen journalist based in Iran, who uses the pseudonym Zohreh Zolghadr for security reasons. 

 

Shams ol-Moluk Mosahab was a poet, politician, advocate for culture and women’s rights, and one of the first women to serve in Iran’s Senate. 

Born in Tehran 1913, Mosahab was the third child of Mohammad Ali Mosahab, a politician and man of letters originally from Naein in Isfahan. The Mosahab family achieved fame in the town’s literary and intellectual circles in the Safavid era (early 1500s until early 1700s): Shams ol-Moluk Mosahab’s great grandfather, Mullah Mosahab, was one of Shah Abbas' court poets and her grandfather Mirza Gholamali was a physician and a poet. Mosahab’s mother also wrote poetry.

One of Shams ol-Moluk Mosahab’s sisters, Ashraf ol-Moluk, was a physician. Her brother Gholamhossein Mosahab was the founder of the well-respected Institute of Mathematical Research and he co-authored the comprehensive Persian Encylopedia.

Mosaheb finished her primary education at Namus School, attended the Higher Teacher Training College and then studied Persian Literature at Tehran University, one of the first women to attend the university. She began studying for a doctorate in 1941, just as the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union invaded and began their occupation of Iran. She successfully defended her thesis — on Iranian poetry from the Arab Invasion of 651 up to the Mongolian Invasion of 1219 — and became the first Iranian woman to complete a doctorate in Persian literature in 1945. 

After graduating, Mosahab went to Canada and the United States to work toward a second doctorate, and studied at Laval University in Canada, and the Universities of Indiana and Florida in the United States. Upon returning to Iran, she took up a teaching role at Tehran University. She also taught school, and later went on to become a  headmistress of three important high schools in Tehran: Parvin, Shahdokht, and Nurbaksh. During her years as headmistress, she oversaw the publication of the monthly journal Rural Life. In addition, she served as director of the government’s Higher Education and Teaching Training department.

 

The Ministry of Culture, the Senate and Work for Women’s Rights

Mosahab then began work at the Ministry of Culture, starting out in an administrative role and then working for the ministry’s Office for Rural Culture. She went on to become deputy Minister of Education, focusing specifically on literacy.  After her time working in the ministry, she was eligible for the Senate, and was appointed by the Shah in 1963. She served 17 years. She also oversaw the cultural department of the Shah’s charitable Pahlavi Foundation. 

In 1960, Mosahab wrote a popular children’s book with Abbas Yamini Sharif; the book and its famous characters Dara and Azar became an important part of Iranian children’s literature and education of the 1960s.

Mosaheb was a poet and composed a total of five thousand verses, but although her poems, including “Mother's Gift,” “Broken Harp,” and “Loving Beloved,”  appear in books commemorating the lives of influential Iranian figures, no stand-alone volume of her poetry has been published. She was an accomplished translator, and brought Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice to Persian readers.

Shams ol-Moluk Mosahab was an advocate for women’s rights, and she championed their right to vote in particular. As a member of the Women's Organization from the mid-1950s, she wrote assiduously and gave public lectures on the subject.

In an article about the social status of women, while defending the ban on wearing the veil (which Reza Shah ordered in 1936) she wrote that the majority of problems women faced were due to the fact that men and women do not really know one another. "Our men still talk about their shortcomings, their ordinary life problems and their vocational, artistic, family, and marital issues solely to their male friends and leave their family or wives to have ‘feminine’ talks with their own friends. The spouse of a lawyer, a minister, an engineer, a university lecturer, a physician, etc., knows little about her husband's life.”

She, like many advocates working for gender equality, knew that women had a long way to go to achieve their goals, and that they would endure numerous hardships along the way.  But she strongly believed that empathy and understanding between the genders was an important first step in the process. 

 

Read other articles in the series: 

Dr. Mina Izadyar, a Zoroastrian Doctor at the Service of All Iranians

Mahshid Amirshahi, Writer, Journalist and Satirist

Parvin Motamed Amini, A Life Devoted to Education

Nahid Pirnazar, Professor of Iranian and Jewish History

Farangis Yeganegi, Mother of Persian Handicrafts

Mozayan ol-Saltaneh, Newspaper Publisher and Women’s Rights Activist