11 mars 2012
Mehrtaj Rakhshan
In honour of international women's day
by Chenar Khoob on Saturday, March 5, 2011 at 4:03pm ·
Mehrtaj Rakhshan (Badrol Doja Dehlavi)
Born in 1889 in Tehran, Mehrtaj Rakhshan was the first Iranian girl to graduate from the American School of Isfahan. One of the pioneers of women liberation movement in Iran, Mehrtaj believed education to be the key to emancipate Iranian women. In 1910, she established “Mother of Schools”, the first Iranian girl school where not only Persian, but also English and French were taught. After the closure of her initial school due to severe pressure from the Muslim fundamentalists, Mehrtaj was forced into a quasi exile in her own country. She nevertheless continued to educate Iranian women by establishing schools for girls in different cities; in fact by 1933, she managed to instruct over 5000 women to a level where they could teach themselves. A poet and an accomplished writer, she authored and published many articles on the need of women’s liberation and the separation of religion from the State. Mehrtaj was also the first female in Iran to publicly give speech not only in Persian, but also in English and French in order to demonstrate the non-existent status of Iranian women to foreign delegates. Hated by the religious groups, she even angered the intellectuals of her time by daring openly to engage in a relationship with Mirzadeh Eshghi, a famous poet of her time. On May 5, 1923 in response to Eshghi’s poem about the position of women, Mehrtaj published a poem in thanks and included a historical gold coin as a gift for him. She was branded as a scandalous and loose woman who brought shame to a proper society.
Mehrtaj left Tehran once and for all shortly after Eshghi’s brilliantly liberating ideas resulted in his assassination in 1924. From her house in Varamin, she continued to oversee and work as a consultant to the newly established education ministry’s effort to educate girls.
In the early 1940s, Mehrtaj bequeathed her wealth to the poor by transforming her mansion and the surrounding land in Varamin into an orphanage and a public school for orphan girls. Considering marriage and family life a nuisance for her restless soul, she instead moved into a tarp tent on the ground of the new facility where she lived with her dogs until her death. Due to her public denouncement of Islam, her conversion to Buddhism, her persistence to promote Darwinian evolutionary ideas and creating a dog sanctuary (viewed an unclean animal in Islam), Mehrtaj was proclaimed an infidel and najes or “unclean” by the religious establishment. However, despite years of abuse by the locals, she rejected a more comfortable and perhaps safer life in Tehran or abroad; instead she continued to supervise the education of the girls in the orphanage. After the 1979 Iranian Revolution as the rest of her family and friends tried to escape Iran, Mehrtaj refused to leave; insisting that her work was needed now more than ever since women suddenly lost many of their rights enjoyed in the Pahlavi era.
Sadly, upon her death in 1985, the Islamic government of Iran did not allow any ceremonies or burial for Mehrtaj. Instead her 96 years old body was thrown out among the city's garbage dump; her school and orphanage were confiscated and subsequently closed.
Mehrtaj Rakhshan was fluent in Persian, English, French and Arabic. She wrote over 1000 lines of poetry, numerous articles and 2 books entitled "Zanan Sokhanvar" (Lady Orators) and “Hedayat be Rah hayeh Edalat” (Guidance towards paths of Justice).
Thank you Ammeh khanoom for all your work and sacrifice; May you find the peace that was denied to you on this planet.
Mehrtaj Rakhshanthis is the letter about her
Below, you should find a link to a more accurate writing about my aunt's biography.
http://www.citytomb.com/wiki/view/Mehrtaj_Rakhshan_Tehrani/
Kamran Dehlavi
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