Between Law and Tradition: Women and Womanhood in Iran’s Nasim-e Shomal

Abstract

Issues related to women constituted some of the most significant debates in modern Iran especially following the Constitutional Revolution of 1906. Women’s education, working conditions, as well as their civil and political rights were also among the widely discussed subjects in the periodicals published in Iran in early-twentieth century as later. This article explores some of Sayyid Ashrafu’d-Din Hosayni Gilani’s women-related poems which he published in his one-man Nasim-e Shomal newspaper which would later become the name he is publicly known. Gilani’s simple 1 Dr. Öğr. Üyesi, Marmara Üniversitesi Orta Doğu ve İslam Ülkeleri Araştırmaları Enstitüsü, Ortadoğu Siyasi Tarihi ve Uluslararası İlişkileri Anabilim Dalı, serhan.afacan@marmara.edu.tr, ORCID ID: 0000-0003-2223-2227. Between Law and Tradition: Women and Womanhood in Iran’s Nasim-e Shomal 119 expression and extensive use of colloquial language in form of poetry made Nasim-e Shomal one of the most popular periodicals of the period. Although the newspaper covered almost every issue of its time, the problems of women, particularly those of “ordinary” women, were among its most common concerns. Besides, Gilani’s frequent use of Islamic teachings to defend women’s rights, albeit in a notably cautious manner, was another distinctive feature of his poetry.