Zahra Rahnavard

c. 1947 -

Iranian artist and writer.

Zahra Rahnavard was born into a religious family in Tehran. After graduating from high school, she attended the Tehran Teachers' College, where she obtained a teaching certificate. In the late 1960s, she met Mir-Hosain Musavi, who opposed the regime of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, as she did, and who shared her Islamic values; they married in 1969. Subsequently, she studied at and obtained a master's degree from Tehran University's department of arts. In the early 1970s, she joined the study circle around the Islamist philosopher Ali Shariʿati. In 1976, After Shariʿati was arrested, Rahnavard fled with her two children to the United States, where she became affiliated with the Confederation of Iranian Students, especially with its Islamist faction. She returned to Iran just before the success of the Iranian Revolution and became one of the influential women promoting the cultural, economic, and political programs of the new Islamic Republic, especially during her husband's tenure as prime minister, from 1981 to 1988.

Rahnavard is the author of a number of publications on art, literature, poetry, religion, and politics. Her writings have been translated into Turkish, Arabic, Urdu, and English. Her essays include "The Uprising of Moses," "The Colonial Motives for the Unveiling of Women," "The Beauty of the Veil, and the Veil of Beauty," and "Women, Islam, and Feminism in Imam Khomeini's Thought." Rahnavard has also held several exhibits of her art. Her large sculpture "Mother" is situated prominently in the middle of a busy Tehran square. In the first decade of the revolution, she used her considerable oratorical skills and her talent as a writer to propagate Islamist values in Iran and abroad. She was a founder of the Women's Society of the Islamic Republic and the Islamist Women's Society and editor of Rah-i Zaynab, a popular women's journal. In 1997, Rahnavard joined the reformist camp of President Mohammad Khatami and in 1999 she became president of the influential al-Zahra Women's College in Tehran.

Bibliography

Afary, Janet. "Portraits of two Islamist Women: Escape from Freedom or from Tradition?" Critique 19 (fall 2001): 47 - 77.

— JANET AFARY

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (Find sources: Zahra Rahnavard – news, books, scholar)

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Zahra Rahnavard in left, Mousavi in right in the protests in 2009.

Zahra Rahnavard (Persian: زهرا رهنورد; born October 31, 1945 in Khomein, Iran) is an Iranian artist and politician.

Contents 1 Early life 2 Education, Career & Politics 3 Legacy 4 References

Early life

Rahnavard was born in Khomein, Iran to immigrants from Soviet Azerbaijan. Her father Haj-Fathali Rahnavard was a Fundamentalist Sh'ia and anti-Communist. After hearing of a gathering of Sh'ia clerics in Iran, Haj-Fathali emigrated to Khomein, Markazi Province where Zahra was born & raised.^{[citation needed]}

Education, Career & Politics

She served as the chancellor of Alzahra University in Tehran, Iran, from 1998 to 2006, and as a Political Adviser to the former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami.^[1][2]

Zahra Rahnavard earned her bachelor and master's degrees in art and architecture from University of Tehran. She has also got master's and PhD degrees from Islamic Azad University in Political science.^{[citation needed]}

Rahnavard was among the early revolutionaries against the Shah. In the last years of the Shah, she was close to Ali Shariati, a dissident Islamist leader.^{[citation needed]}

She has even been likened several times to Michelle Obama — a comparison that she herself rejected. “I am not Michelle Obama. I am Zahra Rahnavard. I am a follower of the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad, who has the same name," she said. She says she enjoys rap music and her favorite accessory is her bohemian handbag.^{[citation needed]}

Rahnavard was the first Iranian woman appointed as a chancellor of a university since the Iranian Revolution of 1979. She was nominated to this post by former Minister of Science, Research and Technology, Mostafa Moin.^{[citation needed]}

After the election of president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005 and the purging of reformist officials from the government, Rahnavard was removed or resigned from her position as the chancellor of Al-zahra University in 2006, replaced by Mahboubeh Mobasheri.^{[citation needed]}

She is the wife of Iranian ex-prime minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi (the last Prime Minister of Iran) and has three daughters. Since Mousavi's entry into the 2009 presidential race she has actively participated in his campaign.

Legacy

Rahnavard is the author of 15 books, including "Beauty Of Concealment And Concealment Of Beauty" where she says: "However, Islam believes that the Creator of man and the world, in order to regulate the human affairs and the society, has created man and woman in two different forms, and has assigned basically different roles to each of them in the society".^[3][4].

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Zahra Rahnavard

1. ^ [1]
2. ^ [2]
3. ^ http://www.al-islam.org/beautyofconcealment/
4. ^ http://www.amazon.com/Beauty-Concealment-ebook/dp/B002BSGTOA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1245372093&sr=8-1

Academic offices
Preceded by ?	Chancellor of Alzahra University 1998–2006	Succeeded by Dr. Mahboubeh Mobasheri

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