Maktab-e Tawhid (also Maktab-e Tawhīd) was a

Shi'i Shīʿa Islam or Shīʿīsm is the second-largest branch of Islam. It holds that the Islamic prophet Muhammad designated ʿAlī ibn Abī Ṭālib as his successor (''khalīfa'') and the Imam (spiritual and political leader) after him, most ...

seminary for women, established in Qom,

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...

's clerical center in 1975, as a wing of the

Haghani school Haghani school (also Haqqani) is a Shi'i school of thought in Iran based in the holy city of Qom and formerly headed by Ayatollah Mohammad Taghi Mesbah Yazdi, an influential theologian. The Haghani Circle has its origin in the Haghani seminary, fo ...

. The founding of the seminary followed similar institutions in Qom, Fasa, Shiraz and Isfahan. In Fasa, Maktab-e Fatema was opened in 1961, Maktab-e Zahra in Shiraz in 1964, Maktab-e Fatimah in

Isfahan Isfahan ( fa, اصفهان, Esfahân ), from its Achaemenid empire, ancient designation ''Aspadana'' and, later, ''Spahan'' in Sassanian Empire, middle Persian, rendered in English as ''Ispahan'', is a major city in the Greater Isfahan Regio ...

in 1965,See Mirjam Künkler and Roja Fazaeli, "The Life of Two Mujtahidas: Female Religious Authority in 20th Century Iran", in ''Women, Leadership and Mosques: Changes in Contemporary Islamic Authority'', ed. Masooda Bano and Hilary Kalmbach (Brill Publishers, 2012), 127–160. in Tehran, Zahra-i Athar was opened in 1966, and in Mashhad, Fatemeh Khamooshi (d. 2010) opened Madrase-ye ‘Elmīyya Narges in the same year.Keiko Sakurai, “Women’s empowerment and Iranian-style seminaries in Iran and Pakistan,” in Keiko Sakurai and Fariba Adelkhah (eds.), The Moral Economy of the Madrasa, Islam and Education Today, (Oxon & New York: Routledge, 2011), p. 32-57 Ironically, it took a number more years until finally, a women's seminary was established in Qom.

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 ...

added a women's section to 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 ...

, called

Dar al-Zahra Dar al-Zahra was the first women's Shia seminary to be opened in Qom. It was established by grand ayatollah Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari, who opened it in 1973 as a section of his hawza Dar al-Tabligh. By 1975, Dar al-Zahra already counted 150 fema ...

in 1973.Michael M. J. Fischer, ''Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution'', Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003, p. 196 Partially in order to rival the women's section of the

school, Ayatollah

Qoddusi Ali Qoddusi (also Ghoddosi or Qodusi) (1927–1981) was an Iranian cleric and a major actor in the 1979 revolution. Qoddusi was born in 1927 in the province of Hamadan. He joined the Qom seminaries in 1944 and studied with, among others, grand ay ...

, the director of the

, set up Maktab-e Tawhid. In its first year, the girl's madrasa had thirty students and five female teachers. These included Monir Gorjih, Masumeh Golgiri, and

Zohreh Sefati Zohreh Sefati is a female Mujtahida. Sefati is a member of the Women's Socio-Cultural Council and a representative to the Supreme Council of Cultural Reforms. Personal and Education Life Sefati was raised in a religious family. She was born in ...

, who had come to Qom from Abadan earlier in the decade in search of a hawza education. Among the male lecturers at Maktab-e Tawhid were Sheikh

Nematollah Salehi Najafabadi Ayatollah Nematollah Salehi Najafabadi (1923/24 in Najafabad, Isfahan province – 2006 in Tehran) was an Iranian cleric, scholar and proponent of Islamic Unity, who spent most years after the Iranian revolution of 1979 under house arrest. T ...

, the author of “Shahid-e Javid,” and Morteza Haeri, the son of Sheikh

Abdul-Karim Ha'eri Yazdi Grand Ayatollah Hajj Sheikh Abdolkarim Haeri Yazdi ( fa, عبدالکریم حائری یزدی; ar, عبد الكريم الحائري اليزدي ; 1859 – 30 January 1937) was a Twelver Shia Muslim scholar and marja. He was the founder of a ...

. Morteza Ha'eri taught akhlāq at the maktab. After the

1979 revolution The Iranian Revolution ( fa, انقلاب ایران, Enqelâb-e Irân, ), also known as the Islamic Revolution ( fa, انقلاب اسلامی, Enqelâb-e Eslâmī), was a series of events that culminated in the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynas ...

, Maktab-e Tawhid was incorporated together with other women's seminaries in Qom into the larger school, Jamiat al-Zahra.

References

{{Reflist Education in Iran Shia Islam