Dar al-Zahra was the first women's Shia seminary to be opened in Qom. It was established by grand ayatollah
Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari
Sayyid Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari ( fa, محمد کاظم شریعتمداری), also spelled Shariat-Madari (5 January 1906 – 3 April 1986), was an Iranian Grand Ayatollah. He favoured the traditional Shiite practice of keeping clerics away ...
, who opened it in 1973 as a section of his hawza
Dar al-Tabligh
The Dar al-Tabligh was a Shiite seminary in Qom. It was established in the mid-1960s by eminent grand ayatollah Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari and soon emerged as one of the most popular hawza for Iranian and foreign students, with a prolific publis ...
.
By 1975, Dar al-Zahra already counted 150 female students, taught by male teachers from behind a curtain.
With the fall-out between
Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari
Sayyid Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari ( fa, محمد کاظم شریعتمداری), also spelled Shariat-Madari (5 January 1906 – 3 April 1986), was an Iranian Grand Ayatollah. He favoured the traditional Shiite practice of keeping clerics away ...
and Khomeini, the seminary was closed and Shariatmadari was placed under house arrest.
Dar al-Zahra was run by
Fatemeh Amini. After
Dar al-Tabligh
The Dar al-Tabligh was a Shiite seminary in Qom. It was established in the mid-1960s by eminent grand ayatollah Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari and soon emerged as one of the most popular hawza for Iranian and foreign students, with a prolific publis ...
was closed, she opened a number of other women's seminaries in Tehran.
[Azadeh Kian-Thiébaut, “Women’s Religious Seminaries in Iran”, ISIM Newsletter, No. 6, October 2000, p. 23.]
References
Education in Iran
Education in Qom Province
Islamic schools
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