Rethinking Gender and Humour in Nineteenth-Century Iran

Abstract

This article examines two nineteenth-century Persian texts with significant implications for debates about gender relationships in Iran. Informed by a methodology associated with Quentin Skinner, the article questions some far-reaching conclusions made about these texts in previous studies, demonstrating the value of making methodologically transparent approaches to the study of historical texts. Versions of this methodology have been employed to present innovative interpretations of writings by such Western authors as Niccolò Machiavelli and Thomas Hobbes. However, the application of this interpretive approach to non-Western texts has been quite limited. I provide evidence of this methodology’s ability to improve our understanding of non-Western texts, particularly when they present hermeneutically rooted polemics. By reinterpreting the texts it examines, the article helps us to develop a better appreciation for the roots of modern Persian gender relations.

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank John C. Laursen and the BJMES anonymous referees for their valuable comments.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 For example, see Nayyereh Towhidi, ‘Baznegari dar Qalamrow Jensiyat’, Iran Nameh, 12(45) (winter 1991), p. 209. For some discussions on Qajar women’s cultural engagements, see Firuzeh Dianat, ‘Iranian Female Authors and “the Anxiety of Authorship”’, in Kamran Talattof (ed.), Persian Language, Literature and Culture: New Leaves, Fresh Looks (London: Routledge, 2015), pp. 337–354; and Dominic Parviz Brookshaw, ‘Women in Praise of Women: Female Poets and Female Patrons in Qajar’, Iranian Studies, 46(1) (2013), pp. 17–48. Vanessa Martin provides a summary of Qajar women’s life in Qajar Pact: Bargaining, Protest and the State in Nineteenth-Century Persia (London: I.B. Tauris, 2005), pp. 96–108. Shireen Mahdavi also provides a brief account of Iranian women during the Qajar era in ‘Reflections in Mirror—How Each Saw the Other: Women in the Nineteenth Century’, in Lois Beck and Guity Nashat (eds), Women in Iran from 1800 to the Islamic Republic (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2004), pp. 63–84. For a review of historiography of Iranian women in the nineteenth century, see Susynne McElrone, ‘Nineteenth-Century Qajar Women in the Public Sphere: An Alternative Historical and Historiographical Reading of Roots of Iranian Women’s Activism’, Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, 25(2) (2005), pp. 297–317.

2 For some observations on the study of early modern feminism in Iran, see Hammed Shahidian, ‘Islam, Politics, and Problems of Writing Women’s History in Iran’, Journal of Women’s History, 7(2) (summer 1995), pp. 113–144.

3 Mehri Behfar gives 1882/3 as the date for the book. However, she makes no reference to the source of this information. See Mehri Behfar, ‘Maʿayeb al-Rejal, Nakhostin Resaleh dar Defaʿ az Zanan’, Hoquq Zanan, 3 (Summer 1998), p. 52.

4 For the text of Maʿayeb al-Rejal, see Afsaneh Najmabadi (ed.), Ma'ayib al-Rijal in Response to Taʾdib al-Niswan (Chicago: Midland Printers, 1992). In the introduction, Najmabadi briefly introduces Bibi Khanum Astarabadi, reviews Ma'ayib al-Rijal and gives a short account of Taʾdib al-Niswan. For more on Bibi Khanum Astarabadi, see Mihrangiz Mallah and Afsaneh Najmabadi (eds), Bibi Khanum Astarabadi and Khanum Afzal Vaziri: Pioneering Mother and Daughter for Women’s Education and Rights in Iran (New York: Nigarish va Nigarish-i Zan, 1996); and Afsaneh Najmabadi, ‘Veiled Discourse—Unveiled Bodies’, Feminist Studies, 19(3) (1993), pp. 487–518. There are a number of editions of Taʾdib al-Niswan, including two lithograph editions. The copy I have made reference to here has no publishing date, author’s name, place of publishing or publisher’ name. It has the stamp of the Library of the Senate (the Upper House of the Parliament during the Muhammad Reza Shah Pahlavi’s reign). On a piece of paper later attached to this edition there is a date, 1309. Assuming this is the date of the book’s publication, it is not clear whether it refers to the Lunar or Solar Hijri, as both have been used in Iran. If the Solar Hijri, it puts the edition’s publication on 1931 or 1932. If 1309 refers to Lunar Hijri, it was apparently published around 1891. For various reasons I find the later to be more likely. Lithograph printing had been obsolete by 1930s in Iran, and given the country’s social and political climate it is unlikely that the book was published in that era. There is also an earlier lithograph edition of the book published in 1886-87. All references to Taʾdib al-Niswan in this article are to the 1309 edition.

5 Gaston Audibert, La femme persane, jugée et critiquée par un Persan (Paris: n.p., 1889).

6 Afsaneh Najmabadi has identified four manuscript copies of the text, including one in Bibi Khanum’s handwriting. See Afsaneh Najmabadi, ‘Bibi Khanum’, in The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), vol. I, p. 229.

7 Sanam Vakil, Women and Politics in the Islamic Republic of Iran (New York: Continuum, 2011), p. 13. Such a title is far more appropriate for Fathʿali Akhundzadeh’s (1812–1878) criticism of discrimination against Iranian women and advocacy for their rights. For example, see Mirza Fathʿali Akhundzadeh’s Maktubat (Frankfurt: Alborz, 2006), pp. 379, 409-11.

8 Behfar, ‘Maʿayeb al-Rejal’, p. 52.

9 Janet Afary, back cover comments on Hasan Javadi and Willem Floor (trans.), The Education of Women and the Vices of Men (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2010).

10 Mahdavi, ‘Reflections’, p. 75.

11 Najmabadi, Ma'ayib al-Rijal, p. 8.

12 Quentin Skinner, Visions of Politics (Vol. I): Regarding Method (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), p. 59. See also Skinner, ‘Some Problems in the Analysis of Political Thought and Action’, Political Theory, 2(3) (August 1974), p. 283.

13 For more on the position I have adopted here, see Quentin Skinner, Visions of Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), vol. I, chaps 4–6; Peter J. Rabinowitz, ‘Shakespeare’s Dolphin, Dumbo’s Feather, and Other Red Herrings’, Style, 44(3) (2010), pp. 342–364. See also Mark Bevir, The Logic of the History of Ideas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), chap. 2; and David Schalkwyk, ‘Giving Intention Its Due?’, Style, 44(3) (2010), pp. 311–326.

14 Quentin Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978), vol. I, p. xi.

15 There are of course other legitimate explanations for such disparity of intention and impact. As Skinner reminds us, the meaning of a text is not dictated exclusively or even predominantly by the author’s intention(s). Consequently, it is an error to suggest that the author’s intention exclusively is responsible for shaping the text’s meaning which then defines the impact on the audience (Skinner, Visions, vol. I, pp. 109–111). It is of course important to keep in mind that a text could very well have unintended audiences as well. But even when such an audience could defend its different interpretation, the proper place of such an interpretation must be studied by a theory that explains inspiration, which would go beyond the scope of this article.

16 These titles are: Taʾdib al-Niswan/Education of Women; Taʾdib al-Nisaʾ/Education of Women (both Niswan and Nisaʾ mean women in Arabic); Nasayeh Moshfeqaneh/Honest Advices; Resaleh dar Ahval va Raftar Khavatin/Essay on Condition and Conduct of Noble Women; Soluk va Sirat Zan/Demeanor and Nature of Woman; and Adab Moʿasherat Zanan/Women’s Proper Social Interaction. Further, at least in the case of two titles, Taʾdib al-Niswan and Taʾdib al-Nisaʾ, there is more than one edition of each title. For more, see Ruhanguiz Karachi, ‘Tahlil va Barrasi ʿElal Tashaboh Chand Noskheh Khatti’, Danesh, 109 (summer 2012), pp. 2–27. See also Fraydun Adamiyat and Homa Natiq, Afkar Ejtemaʿi va Siyasi va Eqtesadi dar Asar Montasher Nashodeh Dowran Qajar (Tehran: Agah, 1977), p. 20.

17 Haideh Moghissi, for instance, considers Maʿayeb al-Rejal as one of the two examples of ‘what might be called a radical feminist and anti-patriarchal discourse’ in nineteenth-century Iran (the other one being Khaterat Taj al-Saltaneh). See Haideh Moghissi, Feminism and Islamic Fundamentalism: The Limits of Postmodern Analysis (London: Zed, 2002), p. 128.

18 Taʾdib al-Niswan, p. 17.

19 Taʾdib al-Niswan, p. 17.

20 Taʾdib al-Niswan, p. 20.

21 Taʾdib al-Niswan, p. 24.

22 Taʾdib al-Niswan, p. 21.

23 Taʾdib al-Niswan, p. 25.

24 For more on Kulsum Nanah, see Kathryn Babayan, ‘The ʿAqaid al-Nisaʾ: A Glimpse at Safavid Women in Local Isfahani Culture’, in Gavin R.G. Hambly (ed.), Women in the Medieval Islamic World: Power, Patronage, and Piety (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), chap. 16; Babayan ‘“In Spirit We Are Each Other’s Sorrow”: Female Companionship in Seventeenth-Century Safavi Iran’, in Kathryn Babayan and Afsaneh Najmabadi (eds), Islamicate Sexualities: Translations across Temporal Geographies of Desire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008), pp. 249–253.

25 Nasayeh Moshfeqaneh, Library, Museum and Document Center of Iran Parliament , manuscript no. 8182, page 2. Adab Muʿasherat Zanan, Malek Library, manuscript no. 639, p.3.

26 Khanlar Mirza Qajar, Nasayeh Moshfeqaneh (n.d., n.p.), p. 4.

27 Audibert, La femme persane, p. II.

28 For example, see Audibert, La femme persane; Seyyed Jaʿfar Hamidi and Maryam ʿAmeli Rezayi, ‘Tahavvol Jaygah Zan dar Nasr Pish az Mashruteh’, Tarikh Adabiyat Farsi, 59(3), 2008, p. 51; Behfar, ‘Maʿayeb al-Rejal’, p. 52; Mostafa Abedinifard, ‘The Education of Women and the Vices of Men: Two Qajar Tracts’, Iranian Studies, 47(2) (2014), p. 360.

29 Ruhanguiz Karachi, ‘Nevisandeh Asli-e Taʾdib al-Niswan Kist’, Tarikh Adabiyat, 65(3) (1986), pp. 199–208; Abedinifard, ‘The Education of Women’, p. 356.

30 Javadi and Floor, The Education of Women, p. xi.

31 Audibert, La femme persane, p. II.

32 See http://anthropology.ir/node/778.

33 Fathʿali Akhundzadeh, Maktubat (Frankfurt: Alborz, 2006); and Mirza Aqa Khan Kermani, Seh Maktub (Essen: Nima, 2000).

34 For instance, see Taj al-Saltaneh, Khaterat Taj al-Saltaneh, eds. Mansureh Ettehadiyeh and Sirus Sa'd-vandiyan (Tehran: Nashr-e Tarikh-e Iran, 1984).

35 Audibert, La femme persane, p. I.

36 For an account of such admiration, see Mohamad Tavakoli-Targhi, Refashioning Iran: Orientalism, Occidentalism and Historiography (New York: Palgrave, 2001), chap. 4.

37 Faramarz Moʿtamed Dezfuli (ed.), Tarikh Andisheh Jadid Irani (Tehran: Shirazeh, 2012), vol. 1, p. 138.

38 Moʿtamed, Tarikh, p. 111.

39 Moʿtamed, Tarikh, pp. 97–98.

40 Moʿtamed, Tarikh, pp. 98–99.

41 Moʿtamed, Tarikh, p. 190.

42 Mirza Fattah Khan Garmrudi, Shabnameh (Tehran: Bank Bazargani, 1968).

43 Farhad Mirza Moʿtamed al-Dowleh, Safarnameh Farhad Mirza (Tehran: Elmi, 1987), p. 79.

44 Abdulrahim Talibov, Ketab Ahmad (Tehran: Jibi, 1967), p. 99. See also Talibov, Masalek al-Mohsenin (Los Angeles: Pars, 2012), p. 54.

45 Taʾdib al-Niswan, p. 36.

46 Hasan Javadi, Satire in Persian Literature (Cranbury: Associated University Press, 1988), p. 214. See also Adamiyat and Natiq, Afkar Ejtemaʿi, p. 21.

47 Geoffrey Nash and Daniel O’Donoghue (eds), Comte de Gobineau and Orientalism: Selected Eastern Writings (Abingdon: Routledge, 2009), pp. 154–155.

48 Sabir Afaqi and Jan T. Jasion, Tahirih in History: Perspectives on Qurratu'l-ʿAyn from East and West (Los Angeles: Kalimat, 2004), p. 131.

49 Mirza Fazlallah Shirazi (Khavari), Tarikh Zovalqarnein (Tehran: Majles Showra Islami, 2001), vol. II, p. 1070. See also Mansur Sefatgol, ‘From Dar al-saltana-yi Isfahan to Dar al-Khilafa-yi Tihran: Continuity and Change in the Safavid Model of State-Religious Administration during the Qajars (1795–1895/1209–1313)’, in Robert Gleave (ed.), Religion and Society in Qajar Iran (Abingdon: Routledge, 2005), p. 78.

50 Mehdi Bamdad, Sharh Hal Rejal Iran dar Qarn 12, 13, va 14 Hejri (Tehran: Zavvae, 2008), vol. II, pp. 447–448.

51 Abu Hamed Muhammad Ghazali Tusi, Kimiya-ye Saʿadat (Tehran: ʿElmi va Farhangi, 2005), vol. 1.

52 Abu Hamed Muhammad Ghazali Tusi, Kimiya-ye Saʿadat (Tehran: ʿElmi va Farhangi, 2005), vol. I, pp. 301–323.

53 Muslih al-Din Saʿdi Shirazi, Bustan (Tehran: Quqnus, 1999); Muslih al-Din Saʿdi Shirazi, Gulistan (Tehran: Quqnus, 2001).

54 For more on Saʿdi, see Minoo Southgate, ‘Men, Women, and Boys: Love and Sex in the Works of Sa'di’, Iranian Studies, 17(4) (1984), pp. 413–452; Abdulhussein Zarrinkub, Hadith Khush Saʿdi (Tehran: Sukhan, 2007); and Homa Katouzian, Sa‘di: The Poet of Life, Love and Compassion (Oxford: Oneworld, 2006).

55 The most sophisticated imitation of Gulistan in the nineteenth century is Mansheʾat of Qaʾem Maqam. (Tehran: Negah, 2009); and Mirza Aqa Khan Kirmani’s Rezvan (Library, Museum and Document Center of Iran Parliament, manuscript no.18262).

56 Muslih al-Din Saʿdi Shirazi, Bustan (Tehran: Quqnus, 1999), p. 377.

57 Saʿdi, Bustan, p. 378. An extreme case of gender humour can be found in ʿUbeyd Zakani. Zakani, whose frequency of explicit use of vulgar sexual terms is unique in Persian literature, finds women primarily interested in sexual satisfaction, which defines their relationship to men. Thus, a ‘lady’ is a woman who has multiple lovers, and marriage is a source of misery. See ʿUbeyd Zakani, Koliyat ʿUbeyd Zakani (Tehran: Avishan, n.d.), p. 330.

58 Even after massive modernization efforts in the first half of the twentieth century, only eight per cent of the total population of Iranian women were literate in 1956. See Asghar Fathi, Women and the Family in Iran (Leiden: Brill, 1997), p. 126. While there are no accurate data on literacy rates in nineteenth-century Iran, Mafinezam and Mehrabi estimate that more than a decade after Taʾdib al-Niswan was printed, only about five per cent of Iranians were literate. See Alidad Mafinezam and Aria Mehrabi, Iran and Its Place among Nations (Westport: Praeger, 2008), p. 7. Another estimate suggests that the literacy rate among Iranian women in the nineteenth century was only 0.3 per cent. See Parvin Paidar, Women and Political Process in Twentieth-Century Iran (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), p. 41.

59 A similar statement is also in Muhammad Hasan Mirza Moʿtazed al-Dowleh’s version (Muhammad Hasan Mirza Moʿtazed al-Dowleh, Resaleh dar Ahval va Raftar Khavatin, National Library of Iran, manuscript no. 817745), which was also edited years after Khanlar Mirza’s original text (p. 32).