The word ḥawzah is found in Arabic as well as the Persian language. In Arabic, the word means "to hold something firmly".[3] Accordingly, ḥawzah ʿilmīyah would mean a place where the firm knowledge (of the Muslim religion) is acquired. In the Persian language, ḥawzah refers to the middle part of a place or an area.[4]Ḥawzah ʿilmīyah in Persian, therefore, means "the place of knowledge". Another meaning of the word is "circle of knowledge".[5]
Hawza 'Ilmiyya in Najaf, Iraq was established in 430 AH (the 11th century AD) by Shaykh al-Tusi (385 AH/995 CE – 460 AH/1067 CE),[7] and continued as a center of study until the establishment of modern Iraq in 1921.[2][8] At present Ayatollah Sistani heads Hawza 'Ilmiyya Najaf, which includes two other Ayatollahs - Mohammad Ishaq Al-Fayyad and Bashir al-Najafi.[9] After witnessing a peak of some 20,000 students in the 60s, then around 3000 because of the State repression, since 2003, the Najaf hawza has now more than 13,000 students, while the curriculum has been updated to include many modern subjects as well as inter faith and inter sectarian initiatives.[10]
Although large Shi'a academies existed in Qom dating back as early as 10th century CE,[9] the hawza of the city became prominent at the time of the Safavids when Shi'a Islam became the official religion of Iran. The famous teachers of that era included Mulla Sadra and Shaykh Bahai.[11][12] The modern Qom hawza (since 1340 AH/1921 CE) was revitalized by Abdul Karim Haeri Yazdi and Grand Ayatollah Borujerdi and is barely a century old.[8][13] As of 1975, major madrasas in Qom which offered religious education included
There are also a number of women's hawza, mostly located in Iran. Already in the early 1800s, the Salehiyya madrasa in Qazvin ran a women's section where several female mujtahids were trained. In Qom, the earliest seminary for women was established by the grand ayatollah Mohammad Kazem Shariatmadari, who in 1973 added a women's section to his hawza Dar al-Tabligh, called Dar al-Zahra.[16] Next, the Haghani school opened a women's wing in 1974/75, called Maktab-e Tawhid.
Outside Qom, women's seminaries included Maktab-e Fatema of Fasa (opened in 1961), Maktab-e Zahra of Shiraz (opened in 1964), Maktab-e Fatimah of Isfahan (opened by Lady Amin in 1965),[17] Zahra-i Athar of Tehran (opened in 1966), and Madrase-ye 'Elmīyya Narges of Mashhad (opened in 1966).[18]
After the 1979 revolution in Iran, the state began to centralize the women's hawza system. The women's seminaries in Qom were centralized into one large school, the Jamiat al-Zahra. In Khorasan with its clerical center of Mashhad, the women's maktabs came under the aegis of the state-run Centre for Management of Women's Seminaries of Khorasan. In the rest of the country, women's seminaries were integrated into the Centre for Management of Women's Seminaries (Markaz-e Modiriat-e Ḥawzahā-ye ʿElmiyya Khwaharān). Since the mid-1990s the latter center has established more than 300 seminaries across Iran (before the revolution less than a dozen existed in the entire country).
Hawza 'Ilmiyya in the West
There are also a number of ḥawzah in the West particularly in the United Kingdom. One of longest established hawza in the UK is Al-Mahdi Institute (AMI). Founded in 1993 by Shaykh Arif Abdulhussain,[19] who received ijāza of ijtihād from Ayatollah Hussain Amini and Ayatollah Professor Sayyid Mostafa Mohaghegh Damad, Al-Mahdi Institute began as an Islamic educational institute (hawza) with the objective of combining traditional seminarian scholarship with modern academic study approaches.[20][21]
The Hawza Programme is at the core of AMI's educational offerings. Modeled on the curriculums of the ḥawzah of Qom and Najaf, it offers training in classical Islamic sciences, employing a critical and academic approach. Courses are primarily taught in English with Arabic language instruction.[22][23] The programme culminates in eligibility for a Master's degree in Islamic Studies from the University of Birmingham.[20][24] Additionally, AMI's 'Transfer Student Scheme' enables students from other Islamic institutions to also join the programme and pursue the MA degree.
Hawza subjects
Hawza students begin their studies by learning fiqh, kalam, hadith, tafsir, philosophy, natural and abstract sciences as well as Arabic and Arabic literature. Once these studies have been completed, they may begin preparation to become a mujtahid by studying advanced old textbooks known as sat'h, and research courses known as kharij.[25]
Subjects studied at the hawza may include the following:[2][9]
Once the basic studies have been completed, students may begin preparation to become a mujtahid by studying advanced ancient textbooks known as sat'h, and research courses known as kharij.
To be a mujtahid one has to excel in the advanced levels of the Hawza including Muqad'dim'maat, Sotooh, Sotooh 'Ulya, 'Uloom ukhra and Bahath Kharij.
Bahath e Kharij is the last level of hawzah and this level leads to Marja'iya, to become a marja' one has to teach dars e khaarij for considerable amount of time, publish collection of juridical edicts (risala 'amaliyya) and become recognised as one (by established Maraji).[26]
^http://www.al-islam.org/fiqh/chap2.html[1] FIQH and FUQAHA - An Introduction to Fiqh (Islamic Jurisprudence) Containing Forty Four Life Sketches of the Great Past Masters, Published by the WORLD FEDERATION OF KHOJA SHIA ITHNAASHERI MUSLIM COMMUNITIES
^کتاب النقض، عبدالجلیل بن ابی الفتح، ص 164؛ تاریخ مذهبی قم، علی اصغر فقیهی، قم، چ حکمت، ص 167.
^M. Rāzī, Āṯār al-ḥojja, volume 1. pp. 1-28, Qom, 1332 Š./1953; quoted in Zaryāb, ʿAbbās (9 December 2011) [15 December 1997]. "EDUCATION v. THE MADRASA IN SHIʿITE PERSIA". Encyclopaedia Iranica. Retrieved 5 September 2023.
M. M. J. Fischer, Iran. From Religious Dispute to Revolution, Cambridge, Mass., 1980., pp. 81-84;
Ḥ. Modarresī Ṭabāṭabāʾī, "Madāres-e qadīm-e Qom," Waḥīd 8, 1349 Š./1970, pp. 201-06, 409-11; 9, 1350, Š./1971, pp. 126-29, 383-87, 1015-20, 1247-52, 1767-72; 10, 1351 Š./1972, pp. 34-39, 199-206.;
Chardin, VI, pp. 326-27. Al-Ḏarīʿa. M. Fāżel, "Madāres-e qadīm-e Mašhad," Waḥīd 9, 1349 Š./1970, pp. 1450-53, 1661-68, 1773-78; 10, 1951 Š./1972, pp. 40-44, 207-13, 283-88, 274-79, 675-79.;
H. Solṭānzāda, Tārīḵ-e madāres-e Īrān az ʿahd-e bāstān tā taʾsīs-e Dār al-fonūn, Tehran, 1364 Š./1985., index;
A. Baḵšāyešī, Yakṣad sāl mobāreza-ye rūḥānīyat-e motaraqqī, 4 vols., Qom, 1361 Š./1982., IV, pp. 68-88, 154-58. *quoted in Zaryāb, ʿAbbās (9 December 2011) [15 December 1997]. "EDUCATION v. THE MADRASA IN SHIʿITE PERSIA". Encyclopaedia Iranica. Retrieved 5 September 2023.
^Michael M. J. Fischer, Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003, p.196
^Mirjam Künkler and Roja Fazaeli, "The Life of Two Mujtahidas: Female Religious Authority in 20th Century Iran", in Women, Leadership and Mosques: Changes in Contemporary Islamic Authority, ed. Masooda Bano and Hilary Kalmbach (Brill Publishers, 2012), 127–160. SSRN1884209
^Keiko Sakurai, "Women's empowerment and Iranian-style seminaries in Iran and Pakistan," in Keiko Sakurai and Fariba Adelkhah (eds.), The Moral Economy of the Madrasa, Islam and Education Today, (Oxon & New York: Routledge, 2011), p. 32-57
^"Shaykh Arif". Shaykh Arif. Retrieved 21 December 2023.
