Few academic careers are as short yet prolific and brilliant as that of the globally-recognized Iranian mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani, who died at a Californian hospital on Saturday, aged 40.
She rose to international fame by winning the most prestigious scientific award in her field during the summer of 2014, one year after being diagnosed with breast cancer that subsequently spread to her bone marrow, resulting in her untimely death on 15 July 2017.
Eulogy and praise have poured on the family home in Tehran from scientists and intellectuals around the world, with Stanford University President Marc Tessier-Lavigne saying her influence would live in the “thousands of women she inspired” around the globe, especially those who dream of pursuing academic careers in math and science — two areas that are frowned upon for women in conservative societies across the Arab and Muslim Worlds.
Iranian newspapers broke a strict taboo over the weekend, publishing front page photographs of Mirzakhani with no hijab. This was starkly different from their behavior three years ago, when she was awarded the Fields Medal, considered the Nobel Prize for mathematicians but given to geniuses under the age of 40 only. Iranians were extremely proud that one of theirs was being recognized at such an international level. Iranian dailies Photoshopped her picture, however, so that she was wearing a hijab, in accordance with the country’s strict dress code.
They have been far more open following her death, with one state-newspaper coining her “The Queen of Mathematics.” Others compared her with her Persian forerunner Khwarizmi (780-850) a renowned scientist of the Abbasid Era whose name provides the Spanish word quarismo, and the Portuguese algorismo – both of which mean “digit.”
Iranian academics are demanding that her name be formally attached to scientific theories she helped promote or study, while one newspaper compared her 2014 award with Marie Curie’s winning of the Nobel in physics and chemistry back in 1903
Iranian academics are demanding that her name be formally attached to scientific theories she helped promote or study, while one newspaper compared her 2014 award with Marie Curie’s winning of two Nobel prizes in physics and chemistry at the turn of the century. The Iranian tributes were led by President Hasan Rouhani, who posted a photo of Mirzakhani on Instagram, saying that her “grievous passing… is very much heartrending.” Even Arabic media accustomed to being aggressively anti-Iranian, including the London-based al-Hayat and Asharq Alawsat, devoted front page space to giving praise and homage to her. They added a political twist, however, saying that her success in the US was a result of the massive brain drain that had crippled Iran since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, which happened when Mirzakhani was just two years old.
Dr. Mirzakhani was born in Tehran on 3 May 1977, where she attended the all-girl Farzanegan School, reserved for exceptionally gifted students. Speaking of her childhood in 2008, she said that she had always dreamt of becoming a writer, rather than a scientist, and actually scored poorly in math while at school. “I never thought I would pursue mathematics until my last year in high school,” she said, citing her older brother as influencing her decision. “My first memory of mathematics is probably the time that he told me about the problem of adding [all] numbers from 1 to 100.” (The trick is to look at pairs that add up to 101, producing an answer of 5,050.) The young Mirzakhani grew up in the middle of the terrible conflict between her country and Iraq, which caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iranians, including relatives and family friends. “I think I was the lucky generation, because I was a teenager when things became more stable,” she recalled many years later.
Mirzakhani participated in the 1994 International Mathematical Olympiad, becoming the first Iranian to achieve a perfect score and to win two gold medals. Mirzakhani then studied math at the Sharif University of Technology in Tehran, a prestigious research institution, before going to Harvard, where she obtained a PhD in 2004. Before leaving Tehran, in February 1998, Mirzakhani survived a bus crash that killed seven award-winning Iranian mathematicians who were riding with her. In the US she became a Research Fellow of the Clay Mathematics Institute and a professor at Princeton University, before moving to Stanford in 2008, where she continued to teach and work until her death.
RIP. Personally, I think also that Hijab hides the beauy of women which is God gift to Mankind. The only place for Hijab is for old women and very pious women.
A gifted person and has the blessing of Allah.
whether she wears hizab or not is her personal choice and between her and Allah. I dont understand the demented comment by some people, just accept her work and respect her!!
It is wrong to say that she rejected hijab unless she said so and this matter of hijab has nothing to do her being a mathematical genius.
Rudi Matich So you want to say women who don’t wear hijab "cannot be" brainwashed and are empowered and those that wear hijab are necessarily brainwashable and that wearing hijab cannot be a woman’s free choice?
Only the GOOD die young….She is a BIG, BRIGHT and GLITTERING STAR resting amongst the Milky Way…Rest in Eternal Peace.. You came to teach us all… your work is done. Thank you ….
In Islam, women are not allowed to display their bodies, young or old.
Daryl Shen How do you think wearing Hijab can enhance the beauty of a woman and what if a woman decides not to display her beauty. Futhermore, beauty is a subjective thing. I may find a woman with hijab more beautiful than a woman without hijab less less beautiful and conversely a woman without hijab more beautiful than the woman with hijab? Why associate wearing or not wearing hijab with beauty?
Agree with you Shafiu. One is amazed by the vacuousness of the reasoning that links a dress-style with emancipation or beauty. The most one can say is that, a woman is driven by some moral or aesthetical consideration to make the choice of hijab. One may also assert that there some evidence that the choice of hijab is made due to societal pressure. But does that conclusively prove that wearing hijab cannot be a free choice and there can’t be a society where women prefer to wear hijab and at the same time have the same rights as men?
Mohammad Naeem that’s the whole idea, these type of guys are those that take advantage of the beauty of a woman. And to them, most of the time nudity, or your bare body is the real beauty. So you need to expose it to show you love it and are confidence. By the time they have seen you all over to their satisfaction and most of the time used, then you are left to wallow around thinking you have archived something in your life. The truth is you do not command that respect and charisma any longer. You cladded or uncladded makes no difference anymore. She is thus liberated.
I wonder how an article about a well renouned mathmatition whom we just lost have turned into a conversation about hijab and woman beauty!!!!!!,
"especially those who dream of pursuing academic careers in math and science — two areas that are frowned upon for women in conservative societies across the Arab and Muslim Worlds". WHAT a falsehood and fabrication!!! .. the truth is that Islam encourages all kinds of usiful knowledge including maths and science for all human being irrespective of gender, so where you came up with this sort of rubish??
Exactly Ali Osman. In the country of my origin I will say in 90% of the cases, sciences, especially medical and engineering, are the preferred fields parents, whether coservative or liberal, want their kids to choose as the career fields. I have yet to hear a parent has forbidden her/his daughter from pursuing career in math or sciences on religious grounds. In fact, in fields like biological sciences, pharmacy, etc., the number of females graduates may outweigh the number of male graduates. True, the tendency towards mathematics is low in female students but the reason is not religious but due to the perceotion that mathematics is a tough field. And by the way this trend can be seen in advanced countries such the West as well, e.g., how many women from all countries have won the field medal so far? Rather, Mirzakhani (RIP) from the "conservative Muslim country" of Iran was the first woman to have won the field medal.
It is unfortunate that a person with high profile journalistic credentials and a doctorate degree to his name would use such weak premises to construct and propagate a narrative.
Jack Alsaleh, aim wasn’t a conversation on hijab and beauty. The aim was to uncover the senselessness of the arhument/opinion of the author and some of the commentators. I think you should blame the author for converting the tragic demise of a brilliant mathematician at such a young age into a politically motivated essay. That was unethical.
This article is about honouring the bright lady. Stop arguing about her refusal to wear a hijab.
Agent of promiscuity
RIP Maryam.
INNA LILAHI WA INARAJUN What a true genius, a heroine.
I think award winning should be with or without hijab,however I don’t know where she would have won the award if she was a hijabi!