Shirin Neshat (Iranian) - gender

Shirin Neshat is a leading contemporary artist. In her videos, films, and photographs she draws upon her Iranian heritage for inspiration and addresses the complexities of the contemporary Muslim world through visually arresting imagery.

According to popular understanding, soon after the establishment of Islam in the mid-seventh century, the jihad, or Holy War (as a means of enlarging Muslim territory), was outlined as one of the foremost duties of the believer. Women actively contributed to the expansion of Muslim territory and fought on the battlefield side by side with their male co-religionists (Ahmed 69-72). The Prophet Muhammad’s aunt Safiyah is reputedly the first Muslim woman to kill an enemy in battle. Another famed female soldier was Nusaybah bint Kaab, who in the Battle of Uhud shielded the Prophet from harm with her own body, thereby receiving thirteen wounds. In a later battle she even lost her hand, and the Prophet honoured her courage publicly. Further role models for later Muslim women include the Prophet’s politically conscious daughter Fatima, who as his sole surviving child and wife to his cousin and successor, Ali, kept Muhammad’s bloodline from dying out. Fatima’s and Ali’s daughter Zaynab holds a special place in the heart of Shia women. When the Sunni caliphs usurped power over the Muslim community after assassinating Ali, the rightful caliph, Zaynab and her brothers, Hassan and Hussayn, along with a group of followers traveled to Iraq to raise resistance there. In order to accompany her brothers, Zaynab divorced her husband. On the journey she took charge of the women and children. After their followers were massacred and she was taken prisoner at Karbala by the resistance-crushing army under Sunni command, she nursed the survivors. And she was the one to inform the Muslim community of the atrocities committed by speaking out publicly.

Zaynab became the heroine of Shiism and the role model that was deemed fit for Iranian women. Ali Shariati (1933-1977), an important ideologue and demagogue who was to Iran’s Islamic Revolution what Marx was to the Bolshevik Revolution, was instrumental in the promotion of this new Islamic ideal of Iranian womanhood. This new Iranian woman had to be politically conscious, religious, intellectually developed, strong, patient, and committed, militant and self-sacrificing, and yet at the same time loyal to her husband and family, compassionate, feminine, and modest in appearance (Reeves 121, 128). Thus, while women were considered inferior to men in daily life, they were seen as equal on the battlefield. Shariati’s ideal, epitomized by Zaynab, was emulated by many young militant women who donned the veil and fought as soldiers of Islam - they are even called “Zaynab commandos” (Reeves 128).

In the context of these powerful role models, it is not surprising that some girls begin to handle weapons at a tender age, much like the dolls and cooking utensils that can invariably be found in toy boxes elsewhere. These girls are likely to grow up to be volunteers joining the military training offered to female university students or to be a member of one of the underground guerrilla movements. Two examples of such movements are the Marxist People’s Fedayin and the Islamist-socialist People’s Mujahidin (both established 1965). Both previously fought against the Pahlavi and now against Khomeini’s regime, in a struggle for freedom and against the repression of opinion. Other groups welcoming volunteers are militant women’s organizations, such as the Society for Militant Women or the Militant Women’s Committee. Many women have chosen this extreme way of life, marked by bloodshed, violence, and tragedies, out of conviction for Islam and for justice. And it is exactly this conviction to the point of violence and self-sacrifice that was Neshat’s vantage point for her photographic series “Women of Allah” (Camhi 150).

Speechless (1996, above) is the title of a photograph consisting of Neshats portrait, cut off along the nose and overlaid with minute Calligraphy. Next to her cheek, at the height of her ear, a gun emerges from under the chador, pointed at the viewer so that one finds oneself staring at a gaping muzzle. Maybe it is not so much the woman portrayed who is speechless - if we pursue the argument that her voice is symbolized by the Persian text inscribed on her face - but the viewer who sees her/himself threatened by the gun. Although the gun conveys violence, at the same time its position also evokes an earring, an ornament enhancing feminine beauty. Neshat states, “The gun placed beside the woman’s cheek is at once a warning and an object of beauty. Both are divided in terms of their purpose - their combined statement is deliberately puzzling” (Goodman 53). However, the combination of a gun, an emblem of violence, with a woman’s face in such a way that the gun becomes an ornament seems less puzzling when we consider Ali Shariati’s notion of the ideal Iranian woman. He sees militancy and violent behaviour for the cause of Islam as a virtue, as an ornament, that grace and enhance her.

Text from: http://www.thirdspace.ca/journal/article/view/cichocki/161