Tahirih and the Religious World of Nineteenth-century Qazvin

Abstract

Nineteenth Century Qazvin was a maelstrom of religious controversy and conflict. Uṣūlīs, Akhbārīs, Shaykhīs, Bābīs, and Bahā’īs all interacted in conflict with each other and sometimes even in violence. This paper will first try to create a religious map of Qazvin in the early 19th Century. The central figure for much of the religious conflict in the city was Qurrat al-ʿAyn Tahirih, the daughter of an Uṣūlī scholar, who became a Shaykhī and then a Bābī. This paper will look at the circle of women around her and how she interacted with them. Although she herself was killed in 1852, the impact that she had on the women of the city had a lasting direct effect until the end of the nineteenth century and an indirect one up the present time.