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Transformation. Society Builders.

Society Builders with
your host, Duane Varan.

Welcome to another exciting episode
of Society Builders, and thanks

for joining the conversation
for Social Transformation.

In our last two episodes, we explored
Abdul-Baha's engagement with the discourse

of His day around governance reform
in Iran, and we discovered how the

early Persian Baha'i community engaged
with this issue, helping give rise to

Iran's first democratic institutions.

But as the Reform movement became
increasingly political and divisive,

Abdul-Baha advised the Baha'i
community to disengage with this

issue and shift their focus from
political reform to social reform.

And the Baha'i community did exactly that.

They disengaged with the political reform
movement almost entirely, and instead,

focused their energy on addressing Iran's

social woes. And foremost amongst
these was the need for better

healthcare and for the provision of
education for Iran's young. Today,

and over the course of the next two
episodes, we're going to explore the

amazing achievements of these Baha'is
in one of these domains, in the

promulgation of what would become
a network of over 60 schools spread

out across the entire Iranian nation.

It's a truly remarkable story
and may well represent our best

example of society building yet.

We're gonna do this across two episodes.

Today's episode provides the
background and context and

summarizes the story of the rise
of this network of over 60 schools.

And in our next episode, we'll
explore the impact this all had,

and discuss how and why it all
came to a screeching halt in 1934.

Now I'm honored once again to have as my
guest today eminent Baha'i historian,.

Dr. Moojan Momen .

Dr. Momen

is a true authority on the
history of the early Iranian believers.

He's written numerous books, book
chapters, and articles on this early

period, and he's the recipient of numerous
awards celebrating his scholarship.

So today we feature an interview with

dr. Moojan Momen on the transformation

of education in Iran

Moojan jan -

welcome once again
to Society Builders.

Momen: Well, thank you.

Thank you for inviting me.

It's a great pleasure to be back.

Varan: Now Moojan Jan,

today we're gonna talk about educational
reform in Iran specifically, we're talking

about the network of schools, which Baha'is
and Iran opened in the early part of

the 20th century, acting on Abdul Baha's
counsel, you know, creating a network of

over 60 schools all across the country.

I mean, it's such a remarkable story.

I.

Let's start today's journey by helping
paint a picture of what the education

system in Iran was like prior to the
opening of the Baha'i schools there.

You know, I've read one statistic
that claims that the literacy rate

in Iran as late as 1950 was 13.

Percent, I mean, 13%!

It's almost like the entire
society was entirely illiterate.

And you know, one must assume that
almost all of that 13% was men and

not women, and most of that population
was probably in Tehran rather than

much of the rest of the country,

so leaving most of the rest of
the country completely illiterate.

And and a good portion of that
13% were probably even Baha'i.

So the literacy rate outside the Baha'i
community must have been even worse.

I mean, these are
incredibly bad statistics.

Why was literacy so incredibly
neglected in Iran at the time?

Momen: I think this wasn't particular to Iran.

In almost every country in the world,
if you go back 200 years, then the

only people who were literate in,
in a traditional society were the

religious leaders who needed to read

the Holy Books and court officials such
as secretaries and treasurers who would've

needed to keep records and perhaps people
like wholesale merchants who were sort

of needing to write to other merchants
in other cities and receive letters.

So there were very few people
in a traditional society

who needed to be literate.

So... And certainly no one out in the
countryside or, or, and you have to

remember, in Iran, up until even the 1930s
and 40s, a very large proportion of

the population were actually nomadic.

They didn't
even, they, they wandered the

countryside, with their flocks.

So they, and, and the people in
the villages

None of them needed literacy and,
and it was a luxury, and it

was a luxury that required money.

You had to pay a teacher.

So there was not a great deal of incentive
to, to become literate in such a society.

So therefore, in Iran, as in many
countries, If, if you are living in a

traditional society, you don't need to be
literate and it's a luxury to be literate.

And Iran was in that state and,
and continued to be in that state,

and the government didn't make
efforts to build schools and,

and to... I'm talking about,

now in the 1920s and 30s. There
was a government initiative to build

schools, but this really only, it
didn't reach out to the majority of

the population who lived in small
villages, or, as I say, were nomadic.

It, it, it only really took effect
in the larger towns and cities.

Varan: So what was the education system
like in Iran before Baha'is

began opening our schools there?

Momen: The traditional education in Iran
was the, what was called the Maktab,

which was, you could translate that
as a traditional school if you like.

And there you would have a, a teacher
who was very often a mullah, a

religious, a cleric who would teach the
children basically to read the Quran.

But because in Iran,
The Quran is in Arabic.

They didn't understand
what they were reading.

They could just read the words.

So they, and they memorized
part or all of the Quran.

So, so they were, they were
taught elementary reading and

writing, and they couldn't, would

be taught to memorize
Persian poetry, for example.

But what you would have is just the
teacher sitting on the ground in the

middle of a circle of children of
all different ages and abilities,

in a single class.

There'd be a lot of learning whereby
they just recited after the teacher

words and, and try to commit
these words to memory.

There was a lot of corporal
punishment handed out.

You could expect to be beaten once or
twice a day, at the very least, as a

child, and as I say, because they were
all different ages and all different

abilities in a single class, it was
very difficult for any one child to

actually make progress because either
the lesson was above you or it was

below you in in its level very often.

So that that's what went on.

And they, it would be a small
group of children and maybe 8

or 10, it, it would, they
would have to pay them all less.

So it would only be the more affluent
children who, who could even gain

this much learning and that they would
pay, pay them all less to come along

and be taught these few sort of very
elementary skills of, of reading the

reading and writing Persian, and

memorizing some poetry and so on.

Varan:And how were the Baha'i schools that
opened different from these traditional,

Maktabs, these traditional schools in Iran?

Momen: Well, the Baha'i schools were based on a,
what you might call a modern curriculum.

So, so they would, they were based on
a, a school structure where you, you

differentiated the class
according to age or ability.

So you had people of roughly the
same age and ability in one class.

In each of your classes, you had
several classes, and you were

teaching modern subjects,
history, geography, mathematics,

science, these sorts of subjects.

This sort of education had
been going on in Iran before

the Baha'i schools started up.

The American missionaries who came
to Iran at the beginning of the

19th Centuries did set up a number
of schools, but the, these American

missionaries were directing themselves
only to other Christians in Iran.

Iran had populations of Christians
up in the northwest of the country.

There were

whole villages who are Christians.

These were what, what are called
Astorian or Assyrian Christians and

elsewhere there were, in some of
the cities like Isfahan, there was a,

a whole quarter that was Armenians, for
example, Armenian Christians and the

missionaries were trying to convert.

These people who were already Christians
from being whatever sect of Christianity

they were to being Protestant Christians,
Presbyterian, mainly Christians.

So those American schools were being
run on modern lines, but they were

only for a very small minute

percentage of the population.

And then from about 1900 onwards,
these modern secular reformers started

talking about the need to set up modern
schools in the larger cities.

And they started also doing that,
actually setting up these schools.

And, and the Baha'is were then at
the forefront of this movement

to set up modern schools in the
towns and cities of, of Iran.

But, but as I say, there,
there were also secular

reformers setting up schools in some
of the, in, in some of the cities and

and basing this on modern curriculum
and modern methods of pedagogy and

modern structure of the school as a
whole in terms of the classes and so on.

Varan: How did the first of
these schools get set up?

The, the Baha'is schools, as I said,
that the Baha'is had been talking about

the need for education for a time, and,
and then once they saw an opportunity

to get this going after the, the
Constitutional Revolution gave them

more freedom to, to do these sorts of
things, because prior to that time, if

they tried to do anything, the religious
leaders would've immediately quashed it.

But after the Constitutional
Revolution with

other secular reformers starting
to talk about setting up schools.

Then the Baha'is saw it as an opportunity
for them to also start to set up schools.

So in Tehran, in particular, the
Baha'i community got together

and decided to set up

first the boys' school and immediately
afterwards, a girls' school.

I mean, this was a, a huge problem
because you had to find teachers who

could teach these modern subjects.

There weren't a great number
of such people around.

And, and to, to find them.

you, so you had to find them.

You had to get buildings,
you had to get finance.

Even such a simple thing as the, the
furniture for a school was a problem

because, local carpenters had no
concept of desks and tables and so on.

So they didn't
know how, they had to sort of be

presented with pictures from America - from
schools in Europe and America and say,

'can you build us something like this'?

And, and they would try and do that.

So everything was a problem.

It was a major sort of,
obstacle to, to overcome.

But, but they, you know, the obstacles
were dealt with and, and overcome

and, and these schools were set up.

Varan: You, you had mentioned earlier that you
know that the Baha'is in Tehran set up a

boys school and then immediately after
set up a girls's school, and that really

was a common feature of these schools.

I mean, in a society where women had
no opportunities, particularly no

opportunities for education, suddenly
these Baha'is schools are, are, are

popping up for boys and for girls.

And this was something that
Abdul-Baha really insisted on.

Maybe you could tell us a little
bit about how that process unfolded.

Momen: Well, obviously the
Baha'is were living in a culture

and a society that thought that
education for girls was pointless.

That their only task in
life was to become mothers and they

didn't need to be educated to do that.

And so there, there was no
need for educating girls.

And this wasn't

particular to Iran.

This was a widespread view in the
19th century, even in Britain.

There were people who, who thought
that way, but certainly in Iran,

that was the predominant view and the
Baha'is knew as part of their teachings

that they were supposed to be
advancing the role of women in society.

And, and so, you know, in the back of
their minds there was this idea that,

well, we had to start educating girls.

So, They started to think about, well, we
need to make a, to do a, a high school,

for girls as well as boys.

And Abdul-Baha

was constantly sort of encouraging
that, and, and in a few places, for

example, where they set up a boys'
school and hadn't set up a girls'

school, Abdul-Baha would write to that

town and say, 'well congratulations
for setting up a boys' school,

now, set up a girls' school as well.'

He would sort of instruct them
to do that, but I think, you know,

gradually the Baha'is got the message
and they would always set up a girls'

school in parallel with the boys' school.

In some small villages,

they even had mixed co-educational
schools, just because they

weren't a large number of children.

And that was the only
practical way of doing it.

But that was, that was a rarity
because the society demanded a

separate education for girls and boys.

Varan: How did the network spread?

So effectively, how did, how did it
grow from that first school in Tehran

to, you know, this network of
over 60 schools all over the country?

Even, even in very small
towns and villages?

Momen: Yeah, so the modernist reformers were
setting up schools in the larger towns

and cities, but the Baha'is went much
further and started to set up schools,

even in small towns and villages.

No one thought that this
was even a viable prospect.

For example, in one small town
in the south near Shiraz, where

the Baha'is started to set up a school.

The governor called one of the leading
Baha'is to Shiraz and said to him: 'we can't

even get a modern school set up in Shiraz,

how do you expect to set up
a school in your small town?'

It was just sort of inconceivable to them
that this should happen. But the Baha'is,

because they had it as part of their
teachings because Abdul-Baha was

encouraging them, because they saw the
Baha'is in the larger towns and cities,

setting up schools and educating their
children think, started thinking, 'well,

we want this for our community as well.'

And you know, wherever, in whatever
town or village there was a large enough

community, they started to think about,
well, can we get a school going here?

And again, they, they were
faced with exactly the same

problems, finance buildings.

Furniture, finding a teacher who
would be prepared to come from

the big city to the small village
and, uh, teach the children there.

All of these things they had to overcome,
but, but they had the drive to do it.

And in, in many, even small
villages, it was done.

And, and the high schools were opened
and they were very often the only school,

well, in fact, in almost every case where,
where we're talking about a village, that

that was the only school in the village.

So even the

inhabitants of the village that
weren't Baha'is would often would often

send their children to the school
because they recognized the importance

of education for their children.

Let's put it another way.

Those people in the village who
recognize the importance of education

for their children had no choice
but to send their children to the

Baha'is school, and so they did.

And very often these were the

leading members of society in the
village or the, or the small town.

So the Baha'i School would get prestige
from the fact that the children of the

leading citizens of the village were, were
coming to, to the Baha'i school and, yes.

So, so that, that's
how the network spread.

It was basically Baha'is in each locality
deciding 'well, other towns are doing this,

other Baha'i communities are doing this.

We, we need to do this
as well for our children.'

Varan: So these schools were open to
members of, of wider society as well.

How much did people from
wider society take that up?

I mean, you can see a
little bit of a dilemma.

On the one hand, you know, you have
this society which sees Baha's as outcasts.

And on the other hand, you know,
we, we have this opportunity that we

provide the community for education.

What was it like

what, what was that like for people from
wider society in terms of them, you know,

the, the opportunity was there for them?

Certainly.

How, how much would people take that out?

Momen: Well, I think for those people who
recognized that education was good for

their children, they, they were prepared
to overcome their prejudices, in order

for their children to get an education.

If, if the Baha'is were the only school
in town then, then those people who

recognized that this was important
for their children, just got

over their prejudices and sent
their children to the school.

And, and even in some of the
large towns where there were other

schools, the Baha'i schools were
very often recognized as being the,

the best school in, in the town.

And so even there, people who were not
Baha'is were sending their children

to the Baha'i School in preference
to say the government school or a

school opened by a private individual
because it was the best school

in the town for their children.

And this whole process
was being driven really by the

interest Abdul-Baha took in the school.

His constant guidance to the community.

His always trying to, to raise the
standard of the Baha'i community and raise

the standards to these schools so that
they did become the best in each town.

For example, in Tehran, he
actually got some American.

Baha'is to come to Tehran and become
teachers in the school so

as to, to get the best education
possible going on in those schools.

Ah, yes.

As I say, Abdul-Baha was
constantly interested.

He gave advice on the curriculum
and other, other matters, and.

He also removed some of the
obstacles for the Baha'is.

For example, in one place there was
a, a local official who was very

much prejudiced against the Baha'is
and closed down a Baha'is school.

And Abdul-Baha immediately wrote to the
Prime Minister of the time, who was broadly

sympathetic to the Baha'is and Abdul-Baha
said to him, 'you speak about trying to

bring progress to Iran, but you, you
know, you are allowing this to happen

in, in this town that a local official
is closing down the schools, which is

the main instrument for
bringing progress to Iran.'

And so the Prime Minister wrote and
ordered that the school be reopened.

And all of these things gave prestige
to the Baha'i community, made it easier

for those people who are not Baha'is
to send their children to the school.

Yeah, so, so the Baha'i schools

became very prestigious,

they, they became somewhere where you
wanted to send your children and many,

many very prominent people did send
their children to the Baha'i schools.

Once Reza Shah, the first Shah of
the Pahlavi dynasty came to power, in

the early years of his reign,

when the Baha'i schools were
still open, there were

very prominent minister sending
their children to the Baha'i school.

Even the Shah himself sent some of his
children to the Baha'i school, because

it was the best education in in town.

Varan: And of course, the contribution of the Baha'i
community to this discourse transcended

just the idea of the modern curriculum.

It was also new ideas around how to
discipline children, you know, a

change, a contrast in terms of concepts
of, of how to discipline children.

Could you tell us a little bit about that dialog
at the time, that discourse at the time.

Momen: Yes, there were, there
were lots of ways that the Baha'i

schools influence society, and this, this
actually applies to the other secular

schools as well, and the government
schools, that there were modern ideas

about sport and physical education, for
example, that, that were being spread.

But the Baha'i schools were particular
in leading the way to gradually

eliminating corporal punishment,

physical discipline.

Previously, this had been universal
in the schools in Iran. Even when the

schools transitioned from the, from the
traditional Maktabs, the traditional

schools to modern schools, there was still
a lot of beating going on of children.

It was considered

the right way to educate children.

And that wasn't just in Iran, that that
was universal in in Europe and, and North

America as well. And the Baha'i schools,

again, this was a gradual process,

I'm not saying that as soon as the Baha'i
school was built, the corporal punishment,

physical punishment was eliminated, but

over the years, an understanding
grew in the Baha'i community, helped

on by Abdul-Baha and Shoghi Effendi,
that this was inappropriate way of

treating children and, and therefore
that, that it should be eliminated.

And gradually, it was eliminated from
the Baha'i schools and many of the Baha'i

schools led the way in that, in Iran and
in particular, the Hand of the Cause,

Ali Akbar Foroutan, forbade

all corporal punishment in the
Tarbiyat school during the time that he

was the headmaster of that school.

And in later years he went on the
radio in, in Iran and gave talks

which were focused on family life.

But as part of their talking about
family life, he strongly discouraged

hitting children at home as well.

Varan: So thus far we've explored the
background and history associated with the rise

of this network of over 60 schools,
spread right throughout the Iranian

nation, providing many towns and villages
with literally their only schools.

We've seen how the Baha'i schools provided
what was just about the only schooling

available in the Iranian nation for girls.

And we've discovered how Baha'i
schools eventually challenged

the harsh traditional practices
of disciplining school children.

But what impact did all of this have for
both Baha'is and for wider Iranian society?

And how did this amazing network suddenly
come to a screeching halt in 1934?

These are themes we explore in our next
episode, part two of my interview with

dr. Momen on educational reform in Iran.

So a special thank you to Moojan for
today's episode and a special thank you

to you, the audience for joining us today.

I look forward to joining you again
when we continue our discussion with

Dr. Moojan Momen.

That's next time on Society Builders.

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