THE CALLING: TAHIRIH OF PERSIA AND HER CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN WOMEN

By Hussein Ahdieh

In the mid-1800s, powerful spiritual movements swept across two dissimilar countries: the United States and Persia. Faith-filled women helped propel these movements as workers, motivators, instigators, and leaders. This book seeks to introduce one such extraordinary woman of faith who arose in Persia during that period, Tahirih of Qazvin. In the Shi''a Muslim kingdom of Persia, 1 the great spiritual upheaval began with two distinguished clerics who taught that the day had arrived when a great redeemer would arise to purify Islam. Many of their students came to believe that this prophecy was realized in the figure of Siyyid Ali Muhammad, titled ''the Bab,'' meaning the ''Gate,'' a Shi''a theological term referring to the chosen intermediary between the promised redeemer who lived in a state of hiding and the body of the faithful. The Bab later went far beyond this initial prophecy by claiming to be both the bringer of a new Divine revelation and the forerunner of a second Divine messenger who was soon to follow. News of his claims and knowledge of his teachings spread rapidly throughout Persia and Iraq, aided greatly by the extraordinarily gifted mystic, teacher, and poet, Tahirih, from the city of Qazvin in Persia. Tahirih''s orientation was fundamentally mystical. The mystic''s goal is to be re-united with God, the ''Beloved.'' To draw closer to Him, the mystic must walk a path on which she engages in specific spiritual practices and disciplines. She will first feel an intense love for her Beloved, then a deep awareness of the Divine ordering of all 1 In 1935, the official name of the Kingdom of Persia was changed to Iran.The Calling things, and finally, the ecstasy of reunion with the Divine and becoming something eternal, far beyond the self.2 Tahirih felt a strong inner calling, the certainty of which gave her the courage necessary to proclaim the Babi faith in the face of unsparing opposition. Within a short span of time, she emerged as one of the most gifted of the Babi leaders and the sole woman among them. Informed by her spiritual intuition and great learning, she brought a deep understanding of the new teachings to the rapidly growing number of converts. The Baha''i Faith succeeded the Babi Faith and, with its emergence as a world religion, the figure of Tahirih as a symbol of female leadership and spiritual conviction is recognized across the globe. The Bab had prophesied that his religion would reach its fruition with the appearance of the second Divinely-ordained Manifestation of God, an individual who would be the perfect embodiment of all the Divine attributes, who would express God''s will in words and deeds, and who would move entirely by the Holy Spirit. Baha''u''llah, who had also been one of the principal followers of the Bab and had known Tahirih, fulfilled that prophecy, and most Babis followed him, and now called themselves ''Baha''is'' and their religion, the Baha''i Faith. In central and western New York State--worlds away from Persia--, people lived in a state of such spiritual intensity that the whole region came to be known as the ''Burned-Over district'' and saw the emergence of the Shakers, the Church of Jesus-Christ of the Latter-Day Saints, the Adventists, the Church of Christ, Scientist, and spiritualism. These were part of a Great Awakening that would energize important reform movements that fought against slavery, alcoholism, and limited education, and for the rights for women. In our re-telling of the lives of Tahirih and her American contemporaries, we hope to convey a sense of the expectation and exhilaration as well as the suffering and sorrow that these women must have experienced and something of the inner dimension of their lives.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B09QNV74DW
• ISBN13: 9798796425695
• Release Date: January 2022
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 328 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 0.7" x 6.0"