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Herati Women Poets

History: Women, Herat and History

After the U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban in November 2001, women and girls in Afghanistan were said to have gained greater freedom to participate in public life and have access to education, health care, and employment.  This is the case particularly in the capital, Kabul, where the deployment of foreign military forces under the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has helped bring much-needed security.  Even in Kabul, however, many Afghan women still face constant threats to their personal security from other civilians or armed men belonging to various political factions. Outside Kabul, the situation is different.  More than in Kabul, Afghan women in the provinces – especially in southern Afghanistan – continue to face serious threats to their physical safety, which denies them many opportunities.

Education opportunities for women are restricted and there is little place for women’s participation in society, except in certain specific instances.  This was, of course, accentuated under the Taliban.

Zena Karamzade was 23 years old and in her second term as a medical student in Herat when the Taliban ended female education. She was on the verge of suicide when a friend introduced her to the clandestine classes of the Sewing Circles of Herat – literature classes run by Professor Ali Rahyab in secret in the pretence of being embroidery classes. "We didn't live under the Taliban," she said. "We just stayed in our rooms like cows. If we did go out, we had to be accompanied and wear a burqa, which is like being imprisoned in a closed space. With the carbon dioxide you breathe out and not enough oxygen coming in, after a while your lungs feel like exploding. The only time we felt human was in the sewing classes."  She spoke in February of trying to organise a mass lifting of burqas, and the difficulties of doing this when even her father won’t let her out of the house without one.  “The Taliban have gone, but they have altered this city and people won't change their habits overnight."

It’s important, however, to emphasise Herat’s glorious cultural history.  When introducing Herat writers traditionally quote Robert Byron's famous pronouncement: "Herat is Asia without an inferiority complex". Not without reason, too. The people of Herat are proud of their independence, fiercely coveted during the 'reign' of Ismael Khan as governor here. The culture is also strongly influenced by Iran, whose border is relatively close; an eight-hour bus journey takes to you to Mashhad, the closest city of significant size. Communities first settled here some 5000 years ago, and the city has since become a fertile crossing-ground fusing Persian and Turkic influences.

The old town of Herat was surrounded by a wall built in 1885 and mostly destroyed in the 1950s. Herat city is of great strategic importance and has therefore been the site of fortified towns since antiquity. It is an ancient city, first mentioned in the ‘Avesta’ (the holy book of Zoroastrianism) as ‘Hairava’, which Afghan historians conjecture to be derived from Aria, or Ariana, the first “Afghan” kingdom flourishing around 1500 BC. The town was on the route of the Achaemenid armies of Cyrus and Darius and two centuries later of Alexander the Great, who in 300 BC built ‘Alexandria Ariorum’ on the site of Herat. He first adopted Persian dress and customs in order to persuade the peoples of Afghanistan (and Central Asia) that he was a legitimate ruler. The initial Muslim conquest of Herat in 652AD was led by the governor of Basra, Abdullah bin Amir.

In the 11th century Herat became a famous urban centre in Islamic Khurasan, where scholars like Khoja Abdullah Ansari and others flourished. During the Samanid dynasty, based in Bukhara, one ruler (Nasr ibn Ahmad) found he liked Herat so much that he didn't want to leave. Each time an opportunity arose, he found some excuse to stay. His army and court, yearning for their own country, paid a poet to write a poem which would 'cure' their leader.  Indeed, after hearing it, he jumped on a horse immediately, not adjusting his stirrups until he reached Mazar-i Sharif. The city had been destroyed numerous times – by Turkomans in the 12th century and a century later by the hordes of Genghis Khan, when only a handful of the population survived a general massacre.

Genghis Khan's nominal ruler in Herat lost the loyalty of the people, and in 1222 Genghis accordingly decided to kill every single member of the large 160,000-strong population. He was apparently quite successful, as only 26 people survived in town, as well as 14 from the outlying villages. These 40 people lived for several months/years in the courtyard of the Friday Mosque, surviving on the food the ghost-town that the massacre had left behind. They stayed that way until Ogodai Qa'an, Genghis' son, decided to rebuild Herat several years later.

The Timurid renaissance, a glorious period of artistic and cultural rebirth at the end of the 14th century, was focused on Herat. Shah Rukh, who moved his throne and capital to Herat in 1404, was the engineer (along with his wife, Gowhar Shad, who played no small role) of the flowering of arts, architecture, painting, learning and literature. The Friday Mosque itself isn't a product of this period (dating from Ghorid times around 1200) but the intricate tilework that covers it is a direct Timurid addition. It displays a wonderful variety of colour, and an astounding fecundity of invention. Similarly, the mausoleum of Gowhar Shad is (or at least was) earth-shatteringly rich in its decoration. Originally a madrassa or religious school, there was later the tomb-building, as well as 30 individually decorated minarets.  Robert Byron described it in 1937 as “the most beautiful example of colour in architecture ever devised to the glory of God and himself.” As things happened, though, the musalla complex (as it is otherwise known) was blown up by a British officer when, under threat of Russian southward invasion, it was decided that the minarets needed to be demolished in order to give Herat a better chance of defence. The invasion, of course, never took place.

Herat was also home to a large number of poets and Sufi mystics – the poet Jami, the Sufi Ansari, the scholar Mahmud Arifi.  The saying goes that you couldn't stretch your leg out in Herat without kicking a poet during those Timurid times. In 1925, King Amanullah began the construction of the new town (Shahr-e Now) which quickly grew in population to about 73,000 by 1970 and 140,000 ten years later. Ismael Khan was the governor/chief of Herat province until dislodged in September 1995 by the newly emerging forces of the Taliban.

Herat’s heightened cultural status is, of course, part of a wider Afghan tradition.  Despite their under-representation – for a variety of reasons, from illiteracy to societal expectations and gender roles – it is possible to trace a line of Afghan women poets back to the 7th century (at least as far as we have written records to show this).  Even though women make up half the population of the country, women have never been free to act or to speak what they want.  Undoubtedly, therefore, there are many talented writers whose works will never reach the public domain, works remaining within the family or just lost to the passing of time.  As almost any educated woman will tell you in Afghanistan nowadays, the artistic and cultural achievements of Afghan women – from Rabi’e Balkhi, Mustahi Khujandi, Qaratul Ahin to even Forough Farukhzad – have been suppressed and insufficiently examined.

This is not the place to attempt an account of this history in any kind of comprehensive sense, but it is worth at least mentioning the attempts by previous collectors of Afghan women’s poetry, the poets that contemporary poets draw on, look back at and interact with – inevitably even to the extent of Harold Bloom’s ‘anxiety of influence’.

The first poet is often said to be Queen Draidukht, the wife of the king of Takharistan (modern day Kunduz/Takhar provinces).  She moved to Japan in the year 654.  Regardless of who was ‘first’ – a moot point given the fundamental need and presence of literature (or some fundamental way of expressing and expounding the ‘grand narratives’ of life) in societies from well before that date - Rabi’e Balkhi is the first poet where we can examine a sizeable corpus of work.

In the mid-11th century, Fakhar Ibn Amir Herawi published the Tazakera Jawaher ul-Hajayeb (‘Collection of Unusual Gems’), one of the first specific collections of women’s poetry.  Despite various books being published all the way up to the end of the 20th century – culminating in Massoud Mirshahi’s collection of 2000 – information on the lives of anthologised women poets remains scant.  Often, only a few poems can be located, and biographical information is limited to a name and a place of birth.  Since women poets were often the daughters or wives of ruling figures (as this meant they were likely to be educated), there are occasionally figures for whom a lot of material exists.  This is the exception, though.

So we begin essentially with Rabi’e Balkhi, living in Rudaki’s time and one of the pioneers of Persian poetry in the 10th century.  After her, there was Mahseti Khujandi or Ganjaye who lived in the early 11th century. Other smaller poets include Sayeda Begum in the 12th century from Jarjan and Matreba of Kashgari.  Sultan Razia and Fatema Sam in Delhi in the 13th century, as well as Kawkab in Shiraz and Badshah Khatoon in Kerman.

In the 14th century, Jahan Malik in Shiraz, Huma in Kurdistan, Aisha Muqria and Bent Labkharya and Dawlat in Samarqand, as well as Zahiri, Mehri, Bedeli and Bebi, Afaq Jalariz and Maah in Herat, Nehani in Kerman and Zebaye Khanum (provenance unknown), Esmati Khawafi in Khawaf, Nehali in Samarqand and Gulshan in Delhi, all in the 15th century.

Poets of the 16th century include Aqa Begum (northern Afghanistan), Nehani Shirazi in Shiraz, Hejaye in Asterabad, Atoni in Herat, Arozoye in Samarqand, Zahifi (provenance unknown), Mahi Khanum in Tabriz, Jahan in Tabriz, Hayat in Shiraz, Partawi in Tabriz, Kamela Begum, Nehani Delawi, Gulbadan, Gulrukh, Salima Begum in Delhi and Nehani Akbarabadi in Akbar Abad.

In the 17th century, Bint Esfahani in Esfahan, Fasiha in Esfahan, Herat and Delhi, Noor Jahan Begum, Aaram, Fanaa, Buzurgi, Gulshan, Jahanara Begum, Zibunessa, Zinat and Amani in Dehli and Janan in Kandahar.

In the 18th century, Leqa in Yazd, Khudija Sultan in Esfahan, Chanda (Ma Leqa) in Hyderabad, Guna Begum (provenance unknown), and Aisha in Kabul.

In the 19th century, apart from Rashha in Esfahan, the rest of the women poets lived during Fateh Ali Khan Qajar’s time: Hajia, Mastoora, Agha Baji, Zubaida Khanum, Fakhri, Esmat, Efat, Mahe Taban, Hajia, Khawar, Huqab, Qamar Khanum Sultan, Haji Gawhar, Mariam Khanum (daughter of Frahani), Jahan Khanum (daughter of Amir Kabir) in Tehran and Taiba in Sheri.

Other poets in this period included: Mehra Rafhe Jahanbani in Tehran, Esmat Begum probably in Khawaf, Hairan Khanum in Tabriz, Maah Shawkat Khanum in Kurdistan, Qaratul Ahin in Tehran, Mahjoob Herati in Herat, Mastoora Ghori in Ghor, Bibi Sangi in Kabul, Shah Jahan Begum (provenance unknown), Mariam Kanizak and Senawbar Hajeza in Herat, Gawharak Kabuli (Kabul), Amina Fedawi and Bibo Jan in Kabul, Agha Kuchak, Umm Ani (provenance unknown), and Fatima Sultan Khanum (also unknown).

In terms of the contemporary Afghan scene, there are women poets writing in both Pashtu and Dari.  The landai is the traditional genre for Pashtu poetry, and a new substantial collection of Afghan women’s landai is being prepared for publication in Kabul by the Afghan Academy of Sciences.  There are outlets in Kabul for the publication of Dari poems by young women – magazines started specifically for that purpose.  In Herat, a monthly publication, Durbin, publishes new works by young women poets living in Western Afghanistan.

Fiction – short stories and the like – has not taken off as a genre in Afghanistan.  Poetry (with songs as an important corollary) remains the standard conception of what one writes when one writes ‘literature’.  There is little or no state support for women’s poetry, certainly nothing approaching the levels of earlier years.  Some Afghan women who fled to Iran or other countries soon after they were born on account of the Soviet invasion are not seen as ‘Afghan’ women poets by readers left behind in Afghanistan.  Over and over again, women I spoke to in Afghanistan said that there were few poets who could really be said to speak for them as Afghans.  Nadia Anjuman was one of these, they unequivocally agreed.

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