The talk focuses on developments hastening the implementation of the principle of equality of men and women about two decades after Bahá’u’lláh’s ascension. It also highlights the station of the Greatest Holy Leaf, the uniqueness of the role she played in religious history, and the significance of the Arc, the focal center of her resting place and those of her mother and martyred brother.
Author, Independent Scholar
Baharieh Rouhani Ma`ani was born in Shiraz to parents from the lineage of early responders to the Cause of the Bab and Bahá’u’lláh in Nayriz. She was raised in Shiraz, served as president of students’ council at Rida Shah Kabir High School, studied Persian literature at the University of Shiraz before pioneering to Kenya in the last years of Shoghi effendi’s Ten Year Global Spiritual Crusade. Upon arrival in Nairobi, she married Manouchehr Ma`ani, who passed away of a sudden illness thirteen months later, shortly before their only child was born. In 1968 she took courses for credit in Islamic History and African Tradition in Religion offered by the newly established Department of Religion and Philosophy at University College, Nairobi. After eleven years in Kenya, she was invited to join the staff of the Bahá’í World Centre in Haifa, where she served in various capacities from December 1971 to August 2009, relocating to Washington, DC, her present place of residence. She is a researcher, author and translator. Her published books and numerous articles in English and Farsi cover a variety of subjects dealing mostly with different aspects of the status of women in religion and the principle of the equality of women and men. She has one daughter and one granddaughter. Listen to Baharieh’s interview on ‘A Bahá’í Perspective’ podcastSee Faculty Bio
