Rejoice in My Gladness is a biography of one of the leading female voices, Tahirih, of the 1800s. The book tells how she began teaching the equality between men and women in largely Muslim Persia and how she was eventually martyred for her outspokenness and courage in the face of the male governing establishment in Persia.
Drawing on extensive research and steeped in the culture of daily life in nineteenth-century Persia, this is the definitive account of the life of Tahirih-- a renowned poetess and one of the leading feminists of her time. Rejoice in My Gladness follows the life of Tahirih from her birth through her adulthood, covering important events such as her marriage, her controversial conversion to the Baha'i Faith, and her execution due to her beliefs and activities. The reader will see how Tahirih changed the face of women's rights forever, as she was the first woman in recorded Middle Eastern history to remove her veil before an assembly of men. At her execution, her last words have been recorded as, "You can kill me as soon as you like, but you will never stop the emancipation of women."
Drawing on extensive research and steeped in the culture of daily life in nineteenth-century Persia, this is the definitive account of the life of Tahirih-- a renowned poetess and one of the leading feminists of her time. Rejoice in My Gladness follows the life of Tahirih from her birth through her adulthood, covering important events such as her marriage, her controversial conversion to the Baha'i Faith, and her execution due to her beliefs and activities. The reader will see how Tahirih changed the face of women's rights forever, as she was the first woman in recorded Middle Eastern history to remove her veil before an assembly of men. At her execution, her last words have been recorded as, "You can kill me as soon as you like, but you will never stop the emancipation of women."
More than Tahirih
Three things I like especially about this book: 1) It provided a lot of historical/cultural background, which is especially helpful to people of a non-Muslim background, who otherwise tend to feel left in the dark about a lot of aspects of this time and place in history. 2) If the historical record is silent on some aspects of Tahirih's life, the author was not afraid to state what would be the probable situation, based on what was typical in that time and place 3) It is not a strict narrative of Tahirih's life, but provides a wider history of the events that she was directly or indirectly associated with. For example, there is a whole chapter on events in the West in 1844 and 1848. This provides a depth of understanding that one would not normally obtain from a strict narrative. It provides insights and deeper perspectives that not always found in books that are focused strictly on history.