Establishment 'ignoring rights of female religious students'

Iran’s religious establishment has been accused of gender discrimination by those within its own ranks, who say it is ignoring the rights of the country’s 60,000 strong female religious students.

Mahmoud Reza Jamsheedi, the director of Iran’s female religious colleges, has revealed that the conservative male dominated Howzeh Elmiyehs (translated as centres of religious knowledge) “are badly failing to meet the ever increasing needs of their female and new students”.

“Our female students are suffering from malnutrition and poverty similar to other Iranian people as our country is affected by economic hardship”, Mahmood Reza Jamsheedi has told Mehr news agency.

“The majority of the funds that are given to the Hoswzehs (seminaries) are spent on construction works and business activities and hardly help with improving the health and well-being of our female students”, Mr Jamsheedi added.

There are more than 150,000 male religious students in Iran who are studying at 450 seminaries to qualify as junior clerics, later to become Hojatolisam, or Islamic missionaries.

The students are also referred to as “soldiers of Islam” and receive a salary from the household of various grand ayatollahs, who in turn receive government funds out of Iran’s oil and gas revenue.

The household of Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is the biggest benefactor of the funds that are paid into "Setade Ejraiye Farmane Hazrate Emam”, headquarters for executing the order of the imam.

According to a Reuters investigation, the Setade's holdings of real estate, corporate stakes and other assets total about $95 billion (£64 billion).

According to the latest census in Iran, there are 80,000 male religious students in the holy city of Qum alone, which is the capital of the Shia Islam.

Every year some 17,000 new Talabehs enter Iran’s religious colleges, with hundreds of foreign students from Asia, Africa and Middle East among them.

Cleric Hossieni Bushehri, the head of Iran’s religious seminaries has told Tabnak news website that as part of modernising the religious studies, new subjects equivalent of postgraduate courses will be introduced in the colleges from next year.

“The idea is to revive the past glory of Islamic civilisation by training and educating new clerics who take our message beyond our borders”.

Iran’s supreme leader has issued a directive that makes learning of Arabic language compulsory.

In a televised documentary on the life of Iran’s religious students (Talebehs) last year, Ebrahim Fayaz, a researcher said: “Our religious students only earn 300,000 tomans (£60) per month which means they are so poor that they are fasting for six months of the year”.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iran/12069326/Establishment-ignoring-rights-of-female-religious-students-says-Iran-womens-colleges-head.html