“The performance, staged on 8 July at
the Azerbaijan State Academic National Drama Theatre, Baku, was the opening of Daughter
of the Sun, a new play about the life of Tahirih, an influential poet,
scholar, and champion of women’s emancipation.
The scene depicts when
Nasiri’d-Din Shah, the king of Persia, met with Tahirih, offering to marry her
if she recanted her faith. Tahirih turned down the offer with poetry: “Kingdom,
wealth, and power for thee / Beggary, exile, and loss for me / If the former be
good, it’s thine / If the latter is hard, it’s mine.”
ה
heroine, under the admiring gaze of the Persian king, listens to his proposal.
Give up your faith, marry me, and enjoy a life of luxury as my favorite queen,
was his bid.
The audience of 450
people watches this scene with bated breath.
With grace, wisdom, and
courage, Tahirih declines his offer. She chooses instead to devote her life to
a Cause she believes is destined to transform the world.
The opening night
stirred performers and audience members alike.
“Tahirih is a hero of
not only one religion but of all of humanity,” Sayman Aruz, a poet and Head of
the Department of South Azerbaijan Literature in the Azerbaijan Writers Union,
told the audience after the play. “She lived and died for divine and spiritual
values for the whole of humanity. She has no parallel in the history of the
East. She is the voice of freedom for millions.”
The play comes at a time when the life of Tahirih is gaining renewed attention and interest in
Azerbaijani society.”
Text taken from www.news.bahai.org