Lady Amin

Who was Lady Amin?

Hajiyeh Seyyedeh Nosrat Begum Amin was Iran's most outstanding female jurisprudent and theologian of the 20th century, a Lady Mujtahideh. She received numerous ijazahs of ijtihad, among them from Ayatollahs Muḥammad Kazim Ḥusayni Shīrāzī and Grand Ayatullah Abdul Karim Haeri Yazdi, the founder of the Qom seminaries.

She also granted numerous ijazahs of ijtihad to female and male scholars, among them Sayyid Mar'ashi Najafi.

She wrote several books about Islamic sciences, among them a tafsir in 15 volumes, and established a maktab in Isfahan in 1965, called Maktab-e Fatimah. The maktab was directed since its inception until 1992 by Banu Amin's most prominent student, Zīnah al-Sādāt Humāyūnī. After 1992, Ḥajj Āqā Ḥasan Imāmi, a relative of Humāyūnī’s, took over the directorship.

Banu Amin was born into a merchant family. Nuṣrat Amīn’s husband was her cousin Haj Mirza, also known as Muīn al-Tujjar. Her father is known by the name of Haj Sayyid Muḥammad ʿAlī Amīn al-Tujjar. His sister Hāshimīyah al-Tujjar was a mujtahidah herself who received ijtihād degrees in fiqh and uṣūl. Further, Nuṣrat Amīn had a niece, Iffat al-Zamān Amīn, also known as Iftikhār al-Tujjar, who was one of her most prominent students and who received an ijazah of riwāya in Najaf by Ayatullah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi.