Modernism and the Baha’i Faith impacted Persia in one area that Tahirih would have much appreciated: education.
At the turn of the 20th c., efforts to educate Iranians--including women, were well underway despite deep concerns. Many men and many women were concerned that too much schooling would make girls unmarriageable or poor spouses.
Opening schools for girls became possible in 1909 when a coup overthrew the conservative elements in government. The second school for girls to be opened by an Iranian—all others had previously been foreign schools—was opened by a Baha’i, Munirih Ayadi, founder of the Ta’yidiyyih-yi Dushizigan-i-Vatan.
Baha’is built the first modern Baha’i school in 1899—the Baha’i Boys’ School, the Tarbiyat School, in Tihran. A wave of school-building by the state went over Persia in the 1910s. Like the state schools whose curriculum they followed,[i] Baha’i schools taught citizenship, but what was distinctive about them was the inculcation of a piety based on the Baha’i Writings which reinforced what the students experienced at home.
Baha’i schools were greatly aided by Americans who offered professional service as teachers, administrators and developers of curricula. While these schools were local, they were connected to the wider world through assistance from ‘Abdu’l-Baha and the sizable Persian diaspora, which was spread over much of the world.
By 1913 the Tarbiyat Baha’i School for girls was educating four percent of the girls going to school in Tihran. The Baha’i came to be recognized by the ministry of education for their excellence. Their graduates had a far greater rate of passing national exams than students from other schools.
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