I Blog Poetry and Prose

Midweek Reflections on A Woman Named Tahirih

‘Idál (Justice), 12 Sulṭán (Sovereignty) 175 B.E. - Wednesday, January 30, 2019

FORUM

30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS  (13+) WDC's Longest Running Blog Competition - Hiatus #1786069 by Fivesixer

It's the last day of the official competition, and the last War Chest Wednesday, so it's only fitting I repeat this prompt from November. Write a list of at least 5 blogging prompts to add to the Challenge War Chest to be used for future rounds of the 30DBC. Then, use one of your own prompts to write your entry.

Blogging Propts

Why is life worth living?
Describe the taste of rubies.
In Remembrance of...
Write about a woman.
Write about a man.

Prompt: Write about a woman.

A Woman Named Tahirih

A woman named Tahirih, dressed as a bride on her wedding day, stood facing her executioners. They were men like the ones she had known all her life. Men like her father, men like her brothers, men like her husband, and men like the religious leaders. Men who believed that women were their property. Men who either did not realize the Promised One had come ore refused to believe it. Men who never questioned orders given them by their superiors or the religious leaders, who feared the lose of the power they have over the citizens of Persia.

A woman named Tahirih, holding a silk scarf in her hand, stood facing her executioners. Knowing her children were being raised by one of her husband's other wives. Knowing her children would be told she was a heretic or worse. Knowing she loved them, but that love could not blind her to the Promised One, the Gate of God, or overshadow her love for Allah.

A woman named Tahirih, reviewing the major decisions that led to this moment, stared at the drunken soldier chosen to execute her. First there was the dream: In it she had encountered the Bab, the Gate of God, the Promised One. Second: She had accepted Him without having met Him; the other seventeen Letters1 had met Him, and accepted Him during their meetings. Third, the Conference of Badasht. Her decision there was irrevocable, even at the time she made it. She had removed her veil, a thing unheard of in Persia (now Iran) at that time. She had removed her veil and went into the garden at Badasht with the rest of the believers, all male, and the world changed.

A woman named Tahirih, whispering a prayer, stood facing her executioners. She prayed, not for herself but, for those left behind. She was going to meet the Promised One at last. It was her fellow believers she prayed for, asking Allah t o make them steadfast in the face of opposition.

A woman named Tahirih handed her executioner her silk scarf and said: "You can kill me anytime you want, but you cannot prevent the emancipation of women."

In the mid eighteenth hundreds, a woman named Tahirih accepted the Gate of God. As a results of her faith she removed her veil. As a results of her faith she was strangled with her silk scarf, her body thrown into a well and stones were placed on top. The world has never been the same since.

Footnotes
1  The Letters of the Living were the first eighteen follows of the Bab.