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Women as Pilgrims: Memoirs of Iranian Women Travelers to Mecca

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Amineh Mahallati
Amineh Mahallati*
Affiliation:
Department of Near Eastern Studies, Princeton University, USA
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Abstract

A hitherto neglected aspect of the Iranian women's lives and activities is their traveling and travelogues. A number of Iranian women pilgrims to Mecca and the Shi'ite holy shrines of Mesopotamia during the past four centuries have left behind memoirs of their travels. They recorded interesting details about their spiritual experience as pilgrims to the holy lands of Islam and of the difficulties of the journey, especially the notoriously dangerous land route from Iran to Mecca through the Arabian Desert. This paper examines four examples of that genre, the oldest dating from the early eighteenth and the other three from the late nineteenth centuries. As expected, the authors were all members of upper class families: one was a princess, another a former queen, and the other two were also affiliated with the ruling families in one way or another. However, they shared the same goals with all other female, and male, pilgrims: to perform their Muslim religious duty of hajj and to do it right. They all wrote about their spiritual satisfaction but also of the disadvantages and the extra burden that a woman experienced in her pilgrimage journey, simply for being a woman.

Type
Articles
Information
Iranian Studies , Volume 44 , Issue 6 , November 2011 , pp. 831 - 849
Copyright
Copyright © The International Society for Iranian Studies 2011

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References

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15 Safarnâmah-ye manzum-e hajj, MS 2591, Central Library, University of Tehran (described in its Catalogue of Manuscripts 9: 1406–07), ed. by Rasul Ja'fariyan (Tehran, 1374sh/1995).

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19 MS 256, Madrasah-ye Sepahsalar, Tehran, described in its Catalogue of Manuscript 2: 595–98.

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23 Safarnâmah-ye manzum-e hajj, 24–59.

24 Safarnâmah-ye manzum-e hajj, 61–70.

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30 Safarnâmah-ye Makka, 59–70.

31 Safarnâmah-ye Makka, 74.

32 Safarnâmah-ye Makka, 79.

33 Safarnâmah-ye Makka, 85–87.

34 Safarnâmah-ye Makka, 83, 91–92.

35 Safarnâmah-ye Makka, 88–101.

36 Safarnâmah-ye Makka, 94-8.

37 Safarnâmah-ye Makka, 102–16.

38 E.g. Safarnâmah-ye Makka, 63.

39 Safarnâmah-ye Makka, 110.

40 Safarnâmah-ye Makka, 88.

41 Safarnâmah-ye Makka, 80.

42 Safarnâmah-ye Makka, 80

43 Safarnâmah-ye Makka, 94–99.

44 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e hajj, Atabât-e âliyât, va darbâr-e Nasiri, anonymous, MS 393 Adabiyyat, Central Library, Tehran University, ed. by Rasul Ja'fariyan (Qom, 1386sh/2007).

45 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e hajj (Qom, 1386sh/2007), 38

46 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e hajj, 42–65.

47 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e hajj, 75–98.

48 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e hajj, 102–17.

49 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e hajj, 195.

50 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e hajj, 197–208.

51 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e hajj, 52–57.

52 See the author's descriptions of her visit to Aga Khan III (pp. 56–57) and Mirza-ye Shirazi, the supreme religious leader of the Shi'ite community at the time (pp. 95–96).

53 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e hajj, 117–95.

54 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e hajj, 52–55.

55 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, ed. by Rasul Jafariyan and Kiyânush Kiyâni Haft Lang (Tehran, 1389sh/2010).

56 On her, see the editors' introductions to her Safarnâmah-ye Sakina Sultan Waqâr al-Dawla, ed. by Kiyânush Kiyâni Haft Lang (Tehran, 1384sh/ 2005), 22–25 and Ruznâamah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 7–9. According to herself, she was a descendant of Aqâ Muhammad Bidâbâdi, a well known philosopher of Isfahan in the late twelfth/eighteenth century, d. 1198/1783 (Safarnâmah-ye Sakina Sultan Waqâr al-Dawla, 90–91).

57 Safarnâmah-ye Sakina Sultan Waqâr al-Dawla, 71, 105. For examples of her deep grief for her husband, see Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 29, 38, 39, 42, 47–48, 52, 54, 63, 71, 157.

58 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 8, 23.

59 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 29, 147.

60 See Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 128.

61 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 71, 105.

62 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 36.

63 Safarnâmah-ye Sakina Sultan Waqâr al-Dawla, 23–24, Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 9 (also 31, 36, 55, 58, 64, 72, 80, 96, 105, 114, 118, 131, 137–42, 147–51, 153, 155, 156, 158).

64 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 34.

65 Born Shiraz, 1277/1860–61, he moved up in administrative office and served in numerous provincial positions (Mumtahin al-Dawla Shaqâqi, Rijâl-e wizârat-e khârijah, ed. by Iraj Afshar [Tehran, 1365sh/1986], 139). At the time the pilgrimage trip in question was taken, he was a high ranking agent of the Prince Sultan Abd al-Majid Mirza ‘Ayn al-Dawlah (d. 1306sh/1927), then the governor of the provinces of Khuzistan and Luristan and later the prime minister of Iran (Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabat va Makka, 136, 144, 146). A few years later in Dhu ‘l-Qa'dah 1323/January 1906, Mirza Isma'il Khan was appointed as the Iranian foreign ministry's agent (kargozâr-i khârijah) in the province of Mazandaran (Sipihr, Abd al-Husayn Khan, Yâddâsht-hây-e Malik al-Muwarrikhin [Tehran, 1368sh/1989], 306Google Scholar) and was probably the same Mu'tasam al-Mulk mentioned in Mursalvand, Hasan, Zindigi-nâmah-ye mashâhir-e Iran (Tehran, 1369sh/1990), 1: 82Google Scholar as the executive assistant (pishkâr) of Nusrat al-Dawlah, the regent of Ahmad Shah Qajar (r. 1909–25), in 1917.

66 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 35, 119, 149, 160.

67 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 35, 88.

68 Safarnâmah-ye Sakina Sultan Waqâr al-Dawla, 52, 81, 126 (see also 34, 39, 45, 52, 62, 67, 68, 69, 86, 143, 159).

69 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 31, 37, 41, 50, 58, 64, 71, 96, 134, 143.

70 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 67, 69, 71, 88, 143.

71 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 88.

72 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 63.

73 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 31, 33, 63.

74 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 64, 138.

75 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka.

76 Mu'tadid, Khusru and Kasrâ, Nilufar, Siyâsat va haramsarâ: Zan dar asr-e Qajar (Tehran, 1379sh/2000).Google Scholar See also her Safarnâmah-ye Sakina Sultan Waqâr al-Dawla, 22, Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 7.

77 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 29.

78 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 139.

79 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 144, 146.

80 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 156.

81 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 49–139.

82 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 32, 37, 39, 42.

83 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 148.

84 E.g. Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 32, 33, 37.

85 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 59, 63, 64, 66, 71–74.

86 Those included places such as Arâq of Sultan Abâd (present day Arâk), Borujerd, Mazandaran, Jâjrud, Lâr and Shahratânak as well as more local regions such as Dushân-tappeh and Qasr-e Firuzeh. See Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 35, 36, 38, 42, 43, 46, 59, 63, 66, 68, 71, 132, 141, 149, 150.

87 E.g. Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 41, 141, 149.

88 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 71.

89 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 63, 152, 154.

90 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 63.

91 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 55.

92 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 143.

93 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 53.

94 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 90.

95 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 128.

96 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 31, 114.

97 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 70.

98 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 83.

99 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 70.

100 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 71.

101 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 79.

102 Ruznâmah-ye safar-e Atabât va Makka, 126–27.

103 The chapter on Mecca and Medina in Khosraw's, Naser Safarnamah (ed. by Seyaqi, Mohammad Dabir [Tehran, 1354sh/1975], 105–53)Google Scholar, in which he narrates his own trips to hajj in the years 440–42/1048–51, naturally predates all extant Persian hajj travelogues.

104 MS 313/2 history, Astan-e Qods-e Razavi, Mashhad (described in its Catalogue of Manuscripts 7: 179), ed. by Afshar, Iraj in Muhit-e adab (Tehran, 1357sh/1979), 442–53Google Scholar (incomplete) and Yahaqi, Mohammad Ja'far in Majmu'ah-ye rasa'il-e farsi-ye khatti, 1 (Mashhad, 1368sh/1989), 27–45Google Scholar (the complete text).

105 See above, n. 18.

106 MS Or.1686, British Library, described in the Catalogue of the Persian manuscripts in the British Museum by Rieu, Charles (London: British Museum, 1879–83), 3: 980.Google Scholar

107 For a list of 101 Persian hajj travelogues, see Miqât-e hajj, 17 (1375sh/1996): 7–15.Google Scholar