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 (), 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 from governmental positions and was a crit ...
, 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 publish ...
.
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 (), 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 from governmental positions and was a crit ...
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 publish ...
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
{{Islam-stub