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WHO IS FATIMA? Gender, Culture, and Representation in Islam Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet (rtfD "T^atima," observed Nusrat Allah Nuriyani, "was offered to this world by her -L father, the ProphetMuhammad, as the complete example ofwomanhood." In fulfilling her maternal duties and upholding her religion, Nuriyani asserted, Fatima performed her obligations with steadfastness and decorum, all the while guarding her chastity (1945:1-2). Nuriyani, the editor ofa newly founded Persian journal with an Islamic bent, sought social reform in Iran by appealing to the character and example of Islam's first family. He even invested his private money to launch the journal in his effort to promote Islamic values in Iranian society. Described by his readers as "young" and "zealous" about his religion, Nuriyani strove to enhance the appeal of Islam in Iranian society, which had undergone nearly two decades ofsecular reform often aimed at minimizing the role of religion in the country. As Nuriyani explained, "Today, because of the coded propaganda of the enemies of Islam, its followers have fallen victim to lethargy in their faith" (1). A'in-i Islam covered themes of religious import such as Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) and Qur'anic exegesis (tafsir). Although this weekly apparently enjoyed a short life span with limited circulation—indeed in its second year, A'in-i Islam faced the threat of shutdown and frequently published appeals to its readership for support—the journal nonetheless provides a rare glimpse ofthe popular views of religious conservatives and the lower-ranking 'ulama of the Pahlavi era, a time when publications with Islamic themes remained scarce and lacked state backing (1946).1 Concerns about prostitution and JOURNAL OF MIDDLE EAST WOMEN'S STUDIES VoL 1. Na 2 (Spring 2005). C 2003 2 JOURNAL OF MIDDLE EAST WOMEN'S STUDIES sexual promiscuity, reflected in discussions of venereal disease and unveiling in mid-twentieth century Iran, impelled Nuriyani and intellectuals with a conservative leaning to rely on Islam's teachings as a social corrective to the seeming erosion of morality in Iranian public life (see Kashani-Sabet, forthcoming). Who better than the prophet's youngest daughter to embody this message of social change? As Nuriyani wrote, Fatima, despite her "short life, in the narrow society of Arabia, with meager means," raised the "greatest young men of religion" and the "worthiest daughters and women of the world beneath her veil of chastity" (2). Fatima's Islamic purity contrasted with the secular, unveiled image of the modern Iranian woman in mid-twentieth century Iran, where social ills such as adultery and illicit sex became openly discussed in the mainstream press (Ittila'at 9 January 1940). The portrayal of Fatima, one of the holiest women in Islam, has been molded over time to fit various ideals. As the daughter of the prophet and wife of the first Shi'ite Imam, Fatima has played a celebrated role in the history and tradition of Shi'ism. Though the historical details about her life remain contested in the scholarship of early Islam, Shi'ite legends have immortalized Fatima as an exemplar of chastity and religiosity for women (Lammens 1912:133-4). Fatima's mother apparently gave birth to her around the year 604 CE She married Ali approximately twenty years later and had four surviving children: two girls named Zaynab and Umm Kulthum as well as her celebrated sons Hasan and Husayn (Soufi 1997:1-2). She died in 633 CE, but since there is discrepancy over her burial and grave site, three spots in Medina are regarded as her resting place (Amir-Moezzi). The life of Fatima, like many aspects of women's religious status in Iran's predominantly Shi'ite society, has long been addressed by theologians and scholars but rarely by women themselves.2 Though telling in itself that women's voices are excluded from the bulk of this literature, such an absence creates difficulties in documenting women's perceptions of their roles in society , for Fatima's memory offers a contested notion of model Iranian womanhood . Historiography on modern Iranian society, written in the aftermath of the Islamic Revolution of 1979, highlights the sustained interest in the life and legend of Fatima. As Ziba Mir-Hosseini has...

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