Haeri, Shahla

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HAERI, Shahla

PERSONAL:

Born in Iran; immigrated to United States, 1968.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of Anthropology, College of Arts and Sciences, Boston University, 704 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, MA 02215. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Cultural anthropologist. Boston University, Boston, MA, assistant professor of anthropology and director of women's studies program, 1993—. Associated with University of Chicago's fundamentalism project.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Fellowships from Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Harvard University, 1985-86, Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women, Brown University, 1986-87, Social Science Research Council, 1987-88, St. Anthony's College, Oxford, 1996, and Fulbright Foundation, 1999-2000 and 2002-03.

WRITINGS:

Law of Desire: Temporary Marriage in Shi'i Iran, Syracuse University Press (Syracuse, NY), 1989.

No Shame for the Sun: Lives of Professional Pakistani Women, Syracuse University Press (Syracuse, NY), 2002.

Contributor to Obedience versus Autonomy: Women and Fundamentalism in Iran and Pakistan, 1993; creator of video documentary Mrs. President: Women and Political Leadership in Iran, Films for the Humanities, 2002.

SIDELIGHTS:

Cultural anthropologist Shahla Haeri has conducted research in Iran, Pakistan, and India, and writes on the interplay of law, gender dynamics, and religion in the Muslim world. An Iranian by birth, she immigrated to the United States in the 1960s.

Haeri was born into an educated, middle-class family in Iran, where women had been wearing Western-style garb since the 1930s. Her paternal grandfather was a prominent ayatollah who supported education for his daughters and granddaughters, all of whom, including Haeri's mother, a schoolteacher, attended college. It wasn't until after the Islamic revolution of 1979 that women began to see their rights restricted. Although they were required to don head coverings and long coats in public, beneath them they often continued to wear their modern clothing. By that time, women were such a valuable part of Iranian society, particularly as teachers of the highly literate population, that the government dared not go too far in taking away their rights.

Because of her family's status within Iran, Haeri was able to return to her native country after moving to the United States in 1968 and access research not available to Western scholars. Her Law of Desire: Temporary Marriage in Shi'i Iran is a study of temporary marriage, or mut'a, among Shi'i Muslims. Men, and men only, are allowed up to four permanent marriages, and through mut'a—or sigheh marriages—they may engage in other relationships. The ancient legal practice allows that a woman and man may contract for a marriage that can last for any length of time, from an hour to years. The woman receives payment upon entering either a permanent or temporary marriage, and the temporary marriage may be renewed, or not, when the contract ends. For centuries, this practice added to Western observation that Islam is a sexually permissive religion. In the book, Haeri writes that religious scholars known as ulama, acknowledging human needs and the sex drive, are now promoting temporary marriage as a response to decadent Western morals.

There are distinct differences between the permanent and temporary arrangements. The permanent marriage is sealed with a contract of sale, whereas the temporary marriage is an agreement validated with a contract of lease. In the permanent marriage, the contract is between the father of the woman and the man and his family, whereas the temporary arrangement is an agreement between the woman and the man. When a temporary marriage ends, the woman is forbidden from entering into another for nine months, for reasons of establishing paternity if such a union produces a child. Temporary marriages are often used to provide an additional wife to a man whose wife is barren or as a companion to a teenage son. In some cases, the temporary marriage is nonsexual and a matter of convenience, allowing two people of the opposite sex to live and work together with no hint of scandal.

Haeri was able to interview a number of women who had taken sigheh status. All of them had failed first marriages, usually to older men, and were hopeful that a temporary marriage would lead to a permanent marriage. Haeri also talked with men, some who were married with children, but who entered into temporary arrangements with neighbors, friends, and friends' daughters. Haeri met people willing to share their stories at pilgrimage centers, where Times Literary Supplement contributor J. D. Gurney noted "the explosion of religious fervor, the physical closeness of the flesh in the shrine enclosure, the body heat, scent, and energy, create a sense of community and liminality which transcends structured and routinized lives and provides the opportunity to break down the normally strict segregation of the sexes."

Haeri puts the practice in its political and historical context and notes both its similarities to and differences from prostitution. Nesta Ramazani wrote in the Los Angeles Times Book Review that Haeri "is uniquely qualified to disentangle the skein of mut'a into its component threads of religious law, secular law, folk custom, traditional morality, sexuality, and cultural practices, often at odds with each other."

William O. Beeman commented in Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science that the book "raises some penetrating questions about women in Iran. Sigheh marriage uncovers a range of contradiction about women and their status. They are revealed as both active and passive socially and sexually, both helpless and cunning, independent and dependent, controlled and free. There is no easy resolution to the contradictions inherent in these gender issues, but Haeri has used this investigation to provide a unique and provocative view of their complexity."

No Shame for the Sun: Lives of Professional Pakistani Women is Haeri's tribute to six women who defied their traditional culture and who are representative of a growing number of women in the Muslim world. A Publishers Weekly writer said that "with rich detail, Haeri brings six women vibrantly into view and provides readers with a much-needed lens adjustment."

As representative Muslim women, Haeir discusses Quratul Ain Bakhteari, Quetta's director of primary education; Rahila Tiwana, who had been imprisoned for her political activism; Ayesha Siddiqa, who was both a feudal lord and a civil servant; Sajida Mokarram Shah, a widow who rejected the custom that she and her children must live with her in-laws, and who instead worked for a United Nations refugee agency and sent her children to college; poet Kishwar Na-heed, who worked for projects that benefited poor woman; and Nilofar Ahmed, Sufi feminist and secretary general of the Daughters of Islam.

Mary Elaine Hegland reviewed the volume in Middle East Journal, writing that "together, researcher and these six awe-inspiring Pakistani women have created an amazing representation of women's agency and ability to construct selves. Both the endeavor and the product are feminist. They provide inspiring examples of how women have struggled against great adversity and decided to forego family and community support and approval to lead the lives they decide on for themselves."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, November, 1992, William O. Beeman, review of Law of Desire: Temporary Marriage in Shi'i Iran, pp. 195-197.

Choice, April, 1990, L. Beck, review of Law of Desire, p. 1356.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, October 29, 1989, Nesta Ramazani, review of Law of Desire, p. 9.

Middle East Journal, summer, 2003, Mary Elaine Hegland, review of No Shame for the Sun: Lives of Professional Pakistani Women, pp. 513-515.

Publishers Weekly, October 14, 2002, review of No Shame for the Sun, p. 75.

Times Literary Supplement, December 28, 1990, J. D. Gurney, review of Law of Desire, p. 1394.