Laleh Bakhtiar

Laleh Mehree Bakhtiar (born Mary Nell Bakhtiar; July 29, 1938 – October 18, 2020) was an Iranian and American Islamic and Sufi scholar, author, translator, and psychologist. She produced a gender-neutral translation of the Quran, The Sublime Quran, and challenged the status quo on the Arabic word daraba, traditionally translated as "beat" — a word that she said has been used as justification for abuse of Muslim women. Her translation, published in 2007, was the first translation of the Quran by an American woman.

Early life Laleh Bakhtiar was born as Mary Nell Bakhtiar on July 29, 1938, in Tehran, Pahlavi Iran. Her mother was an American named Helen Woodsen Jeffreys, and her father was an Iranian physician named Abol Ghassem Bakhtiar. Bakhtiar grew up as a Christian alongside two older sisters with her mother in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. She became a Catholic at age eight. Her mother, however, was a Presbyterian.

Bakhtiar received her BA degree in history from Chatham College in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, graduating in 1960.

While visiting her mother in Isfahan, Bakhtiar was unhappy with being named "Mary Nell". Her mother talked with her friend and Bakhtiari tribal chief, Yahya Khan, who gave Bakhtiar the Persian name "Laleh" in 1957. She then went by the name professionally. Earlier, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at the age of 19, she met the Iranian philosopher Seyyed Hossein Nasr, who encouraged her to pursue Islam both personally and academically. Bakhtiar by then was "a Christian without any particular denomination" after drifting away from Catholicism. Bakhtiar believed these translations would foster understanding between Muslims and non-Muslims.

Personal life Bakhtiar was engaged in 1960, and married in 1964 to Iranian architect Nader Ardalan, while she was a nondenominational Christian; she converted to Islam in 1964.

She received her Ph.D. from the University of New Mexico in educational psychology. She moved to Chicago in 1992 and was a Nationally Certified Counselor.

She died on October 18, 2020, in Chicago from myelodysplastic syndrome.

Family Bakhtiar had three children, including Iran Davar (now Davar Ardalan).

Her older brother was Jamshid Bakhtiar, better known as "Jim", who was a psychiatrist. He had been a fullback and placekicker at the University of Virginia and he was selected by the Football Writers Association of America as a first-team back in its 1957 College Football All-America Team. Through her sister Parveen, Bakhtiar's niece is novelist Lailee McNair and her nephew is former tennis player Fred McNair.

Awards and recognition In May 2016, Bakhtiar was awarded a lifetime achievement award from the Mohammed Webb Foundation in Chicago.

On November 15, 2020, Daisy Khan, founder of the Women's Islamic Initiative in Spirituality and Equality (WISE), honored Bakhtiar with a lifetime achievement award.

Criticism Mohammad Ashraf, head of the Islamic Society of North America (Canada), said he would not permit The Sublime Quran to be sold at the society's bookstore because Bakhtiar had not studied at an accredited Muslim institution. "This woman-friendly translation will be out of line and will not fly too far", he commented. "Women have been given a very good place in Islam."

Khaled Abou El Fadl, an Islamic law professor from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), said that Bakhtiar "has a reputation as an editor, not [as] an Islamic scholar" Eggers said that "t opened me up to the beauty of the faith in a way that no interpretation of the text had before. And, of course, in the book you find, very clearly, Islam's dedication to social justice, to peace and to the less fortunate."

Prince Ghazi Bin Muhammad from Jordan approved of Bakhtiar's interpretation of the Quran. The author Reza Aslan also praised the translation, saying, "For the first time a woman has been able to reengage the scripture from a different point of view, thus producing a gender neutral translation that is far more consistent with the message and spirit of the Quran than any previous translation."