Influential Iranian Women: Bibi Monajemeh (1203-1280)

Men may have written the history of Iran – but Bibi Monajemeh’s accomplishments as Iran’s first female astronomer and astrologer were so impressive that the men could not simply throw her name on the heap of forgotten women in Iranian history.

She was born around 1203 in Nishapur, in what is now the northeastern province of Razavi Khorasan, a significant cultural, commercial, and intellectual city in the Islamic world that was destroyed during the Mongol invasion of 1221.

Bibi Monajemeh was the daughter of Kamal ad-Din Semnani, chief of Nishapur’s Sunni Shafi'i followers and an astronomer who worked for Mohammad Khwarazm Shah, the emperor who ruled a vast empire covering present-day Central Asia, Afghanistan, and Iran from 1200 to 1220. Her mother was the granddaughter of Mohammad Ibn-Yahya, a notable Islamic scholar and jurist.

Nishapur had a rich Persianate culture and Bibi Monajemeh’s home was a meeting place for scholars, philosophers and intellectuals, giving her exposure to mathematics and astronomy from a young age. Iran may have been home to other female astronomers in its long history but, if so, their names are lost to us now. We know Bibi Monajemeh because her son, Amir Nasrudin Hosseini, a 13th century historiographer known as Ibn-e Bibi or “Son of Bibi” after his mother’s fame, wrote about her. Bibi’s real first name is nevertheless shrouded by time: Monajemeh means “female astronomer” or “astrologer” and Bibi is simply “Lady.”

Bibi Monajemeh was able to attend the court of Mohammad Khwarazm’s successor, Sultan Jalal al-Din Khwarazm Shah, thanks to her mastery of astronomy and astrology. Iranian kings relied on the services of astrologers who, in turn, relied on what they could glean from the sky. Ibn-e Bibi wrote that his mother became a constant companion to Sultan Jalal al-Din in his travels and battles. The king valued Bibi Monajemeh so much that he decided to ignore her gender and keep her close at hand. Her husband, Majdeddin Mohammad Turjeman, an official of the court, always accompanied her.

One battle which Bibi Monajemeh attended was the Battle of Indus, in November 1221, against the Mongol army. The Mongols were led by Genghis Khan and achieved an overwhelming victory. Legend has it that Bibi Monajemeh herself participated in the battles.

Sultan Jalal al-Din’s empire began to fall apart after this defeat. Bibi Monajemeh and her husband left the court. According to some sources, including Bibi Monajemeh’s contemporary historian Ali Ibn al-Athir in his Complete History, when Sultan Jalal al-Din and his army were surrounded at the headwaters of the river Tigris, Bibi Monajemeh received an invitation from Aladin Kayghobad, the Seljuk sultan of Rum (in modern Anatolia) to join his court.

Bibi Monajemeh, who was convinced Sultan Jalal al-Din would be defeated by Genghis Khan and who was also unhappy with rivalries within the court, left for Damascus. The story goes that, before leaving, she prophesied Jalal al-Din’s betrayal at the hands of his brother Ghiyath al-Din, and would be killed. The sultan ignored this prophecy. But it came true: his brother plotted his assassinated in 1231 by a Kurd in Diyarbakir in today’s Turkey.

In Damascus, Bibi Monajemeh was received by Al-Ashraf Muzaffar ad-Din Musa, the Ayyubid Sultan of Egypt, who was impressed by her reputation.

Bibi Monajemeh also prophesied the victory of Sultan Aladin Kayghobad, the Seljuk king of Rum, in his war in Syria; and she notified the sultan of her prophecy. After the sultan emerged victorious in this war, he sent Bibi a sumptuous gift, and she joined his court. Bibi then asked Sultan Kayghobad to appoint her husband head of the court’s secretariat and the sultan accepted.

The couple and their son spent the rest of their lives in the Seljuk court. According to available sources, Majdeddin Mohammad Turjeman died in 1271 and Bibi Monajemeh in 1280, in Konya, in today’s Turkey. Their son Ibn-e Bibi remained at court, became a military commander and wrote a history of the Seljuk dynasty from 1209 to 1300, considered an  important source by modern historians.