Hakimeh Saqhaye-Biria, Assistant Professor at Tehran University
Women are hurting. Around the world, women are living through a profound crisis – one that is deeper than headlines about inequality or statistics about violence. It is a crisis rooted in how modern societies see women, and even more fundamentally, in how they fail to see them as full human beings. This is not a sudden development of recent decades but the culmination of social structures, economic systems, and cultural norms that have been forming for centuries.
Ayatollah Khamenei has described this condition strikingly: “Women's crisis" might appear to be a strange term. Today the environmental crisis, the water crisis, the energy crisis and global warming are considered as the main issues that humanity has to face. But none of these things are among the main issues of humanity. Most of the main problems of humanity are related to spirituality, ethics and social behavior of human beings towards each other - including the relationship between men and women, women's position in society and women's issues. This is a genuine problem.”
This framing shifts the perspective entirely. Instead of treating the challenges facing women as peripheral social issues, it places them at the center of humanity’s moral failures.
The dehumanization crisis
Decades of research identify a recurring pattern: women are often reduced to objects. Jean Kilbourne captured this phenomenon with the phrase “killing us softly,” referring to how repeated portrayals of women as commodities erode their humanity. The cumulative effect is structural dehumanization. When women are consistently framed as bodies rather than full persons, society becomes less able to recognize their agency and inherent dignity.
Even the recent public disclosures surrounding high-profile exploitation networks – such as the “Epstein files” – illustrate how a materialistic and power-driven system can allow the mistreatment of women to flourish. These cases reveal that objectification is not just an academic concept. Taken together, these realities point to one conclusion: the crisis facing women today is fundamentally a crisis of dehumanization. It is not merely a matter of policy failure or social oversight. It stems from a worldview, often shaped by materialism, that disconnects human worth from spirituality, ethics, and intrinsic dignity. In such a system, women are the first to suffer. And because women are the moral center of families and communities, their suffering becomes a mirror of a broader human crisis.
Lady Fatimah’s personality: The key to overcoming the crisis
Fourteen centuries ago, a similar moral darkness – known as jāhiliyyah – overshadowed the world. It too was marked by pressures placed on women, distorted expectations, and forms of mistreatment or violence that denied them their humanity. In that moment, a transformative figure emerged: Lady Fatimah Zahra (pbuh). Her life embodied dignity, compassion, strength, and spiritual clarity. Today, as the world grapples with its own “modern jāhiliyyah,” Fatimah’s example offers a rare and luminous alternative.
Lady Fatimah Zahra (pbuh) was born into a society the Quran calls “jāhiliyyah ūlā.” This was a civilizational mindset marked by the collapse of moral order including complete disregard for the dignity of women. Women were socially pressured to do tabarruj (display of ornaments and extravagance in appearance), expectations that reduced women to symbols of status, beauty and possession. Girls and women were often treated as property rather than persons.
Some baby girls were tragically buried alive because families believed daughters could bring shame. She was born in Mecca to Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) and Lady Khadijah. Her very birth activated the anti-woman mindset of her time as Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) was reprimanded for having a baby girl.
During the days in Mecca, she experienced much hardship – losing her mother and seeing her father face hostility – but developed exceptional emotional maturity. As a young lady, she migrated to Medina with her family. There, she married Ali ibn Abi Talib (pbuh). She lived to be somewhere between 18 and 25 years old, depending on various historic accounts, but left a legacy that continues to inspire millions.
The humanization of women in Islam
Today’s world, despite its technology, mirrors many features of that earlier moral confusion: Women are often valued more for visibility than humanity. Social and economic systems profit from insecurity and objectification. Many women feel unseen, exhausted, or overburdened. These are the symptoms of modern jāhiliyyah – a condition where societies lose their sense of human dignity, especially for women.
Understanding the world of the first jāhiliyyah – and recognizing its echoes in our own time – allows us to appreciate the scale of the transformation that Islam brought. And nowhere is this transformation more visible than in the new vision of womanhood that Islam introduced. Lady Fatimah Zahra (pbuh) became the clearest expression of this renewed dignity.
If the objectification of women is one of the most destructive blows to humanity today, it is because women occupy what Ayatollah Khamenei describes as the most influential moral and civilizational position: “the most delicate, enduring, influential, and sensitive of roles in humanity’s movement toward perfection.”
This is not merely a statement about social contribution; it is a profound observation about human development. When a woman’s dignity is harmed, the damage spreads outward – to families, to communities, and to the fabric of society itself. To diminish the humanity of women is to injure the very process through which human beings strive for moral and spiritual elevation.
Against this backdrop, one of the most transformative contributions of Islam was the restoration of women’s humanity. Islam presented women not as accessories to social order, nor as commodities within economic structures, but as full moral agents bearing the same spiritual responsibilities and capacities as men.
Islam presented women not as accessories to social order but as full moral agents. The Quran expresses this equality in verse 35 of Surah al-Ahzab: “Surely the men who submit (to Allah) and the women who submit (to Allah), the men who have faith and the women who have faith, the men who are obedient and the women who are obedient, the men who are truthful and the women who are truthful; the men who are steadfast and the women who are steadfast, the men who humble themselves (to Allah) and the women who humble themselves (to Allah), the men who give alms and the women who give alms, the men who fast and the women who fast, the men who guard their chastity and the women who guard their chastity, the men who remember Allah much and the women who remember Allah much: for them has Allah prepared forgiveness and a mighty reward.” Each trait is mentioned twice, once for men and once for women. It declares that the path to becoming a full human being is the same for both sexes.
The highest example of human potential
If Islam restored the humanity of women, it also offered the world an unparalleled example of what a fully realized, spiritually perfected woman looks like: Lady Fatimah Zahra (pbuh).
Ayatollah Khamenei describes her in extraordinary terms:
“Islam presents Fatimah – this outstanding, exceptional, celestial being – as the model and exemplar of womanhood. Her outward life, her struggle, her activism, her knowledge, her eloquence, her sacrifice, her role as a wife and mother, her migration, her presence in every political, military, and revolutionary arena, and her comprehensive excellence that caused even great men to humble themselves before her – all of this, along with her spiritual rank, her bowing and prostration, her mihrab of worship, her supplications, her Sahifa, her heartfelt devotion, her heavenly nature, the radiance of her spiritual essence – in short, her being equal in weight and stature to the Commander of the Faithful and to the Prophet – this is what a woman is. This is the model of womanhood that Islam seeks to build.”
Lady Fatimah (pbuh) is presented as the pinnacle of human possibility. Her example shows that true worth lies in spiritual elevation, ethical strength, and inner radiance.
Lady Fatimah: The exemplar of women who build humanity
In Islamic thought, the significance of women extends far beyond social participation or economic contribution. Their most profound role is what Imam Khomeini called “human-making.” He described it with clarity: “The duty of women is to build human beings. If human-making women are taken away from nations, those nations will fall into decline and defeat. It is women who strengthen nations and make them courageous.”
Lady Fatimah Zahra (pbuh) embodied this human-making role. She raised four children who became towering models of spiritual courage: Hassan (pbuh), Hussayn (pbuh), Zaynab (pbuh), and Umm Kulthum (pbuh).
Lady Fatimah’s mission included raising sons and daughters who attained the highest spiritual ranks, elevating her husband through partnership in Allah's obedience, and cultivating in herself the virtues that define fully realized human beings. She is the model for all women seeking integrity, purpose, and human flourishing.
In the words of Ayatollah Khamenei, “As a woman and someone with feminine features, [she excelled] in homemaking, as a wife, and in raising her children. She brought someone like Zainab (pbuh) into existence and raised her. She nurtured people like Imam Hussain (pbuh) and Imam Hassan (pbuh) in her embrace. She was present in unforgettable parts of history: her presence in Shi’b Abi Talib, in migrating to Medina, in some of the Prophet’s battles, in the event of Mubahala. The list is endless.”
This spiritual cultivation was visible in Lady Fatimah’s married life, even in the earliest days of her marriage with Imam Ali (pbuh). The day after their wedding, the Prophet (pbuh) asked Imam Ali (pbuh): “How did you find your wife?” To which Ali (pbuh) replied: “The best helper in obeying God.”
The inner path of human-making: Fatimah’s own words
The foundation of Lady Fatimah’s greatness was not only her outward actions, but the profound spiritual landscape of her inner life. She expressed the essence of her values in a famous saying:
“From your worldly realm, three things have been made beloved to me: the recitation of the Quran, looking at the face of the Messenger of God, and giving in the way of God.”
Imam Hasan (peace be upon him) says that on one Friday night, my mother stood in worship until dawn, praying and supplicating continuously.
He says: I heard her praying for the believing men and women, for the people, and for the affairs of the Muslim community.
When morning came, I said, ‘Mother, why did you not pray for yourself as you prayed for others?’
She replied, ‘My son, first the neighbor, then the household.’
But Fatimah’s spiritual excellence was not confined to worship; it overflowed into extraordinary acts of charity and selflessness. One of the most vivid examples of her generosity occurred on her wedding night: It is narrated that the Prophet (pbuh) gave his daughter a new garment to wear on the night of her marriage. As the bridal procession moved toward the house of Imam Ali (pbuh), a needy woman approached and expressed her need. Fatimah (pbuh), who at that moment owned two garments – one old and one new – remembered the Quranic verse: “You will never attain true goodness until you give out of what you love.” In that moment, she gave the new garment – the one she loved – to the needy woman. As Ayatollah Khamenei put it, “She was a celestial being in every dimension of her life, whether it was in her worship and humility before the Lord, or in her altruism and self-sacrifice for others. She wasn’t heedless of the earth or of other human beings. On her wedding night she gave her wedding dress to a beggar, she went without food for three days, and she gave her meal for breaking her fast to the needy. She attended to the people’s needs.”
Fatimah as the answer to the crisis of womanhood
As was said at the beginning of this article, the contemporary world is facing a profound crisis of womanhood – defined by the objectification and dehumanization of women. This is the result of centuries of cultural developments, especially within the Western world. Modern Western civilization constructed itself upon an assumption of civilizational superiority. This worldview increasingly measured human beings through material standards.
The result is the crisis we witness today: a world in which women are valued more for visibility than humanity. Across the globe, women are facing unprecedented levels of psychological strain, social pressure, loneliness, and commodification.
In this moment, the life of Lady Fatimah Zahra (pbuh) offers a luminous alternative. She represents a civilizational paradigm that speaks to the need for dignity, moral clarity, spiritual purpose, family rootedness, and harmonious community life.
Her humanity was complete, integrated, and radiant. Her womanhood was a source of power, not vulnerability. Her presence in family and society was transformative. She opens a horizon in which womanhood is a source of human elevation.
Fatimah Zahra (pbuh) is not only a historical figure. She is the answer – the moral, spiritual, and civilizational answer – to the crisis of womanhood in our time.
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