News outlets around the world – from the UK’s left-leaning Independent to Breitbart, the US alt-right’s news website of choice – have seized upon a series of tweets by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Seyed Ali Khamenei which were posted to celebrate the birthday of Hazrat Fatima Zahra.
As the favourite daughter of the Prophet Mohammed, Fatima is venerated as a paradigm of womanhood in the Muslim world and her birthday is celebrated as a sort of Mothers’ Day.
The Ayatollah’s tweets have been interpreted as saying that feminism is a Zionist plot. His all-consuming hatred for Israel is a matter of record: he described Israel as a ‘cancerous tumour’ and blamed Jews for the long-running internecine feuds between various sects of Islam. But is he actually blaming Israel for the women’s movement?
Taken in context, the sentiment is more equivocal, decrying oppression of women almost as much as challenging their roles beyond that of wife and mother.
