Mary, an obedient maiden gave birth to the God-Man Jesus;...

Mary, an obedient maiden gave birth to the God-Man Jesus; Fatima, sharing in the divine nur , held the Imamate within her womb. Theologians clearly relied on Mary and Fatima to articulate and expand their respective orthodoxies and notions of rightness. By defining first their pure and immaculate nature, authors transformed Mary’s and Fatima’s bodies into sacred containers . Fatima also served as a sacred vessel, holding the Imam’s nur within her while simultaneously sharing it.

Fatima al-Zahra existed as the only female member of the holy family and, like her father, husband and sons, remained immaculate and infallible. Both Shiite and Christian authors also likened their holy women to an ancient container, Noah’s ark; the women’s wombs carried humanity’s true salvation. Mary and Fatima served equally important functions in political and sectarian discourse. With such a rhetorical agenda in mind, hagiographers accented Mary’s and Fatima’s maternal roles.

These holy women, as mothers, effectively defined the limits of community and sectarian division. By symbolically adopting believers to their maternal care, Mary and Fatima damned unbelievers to hell. Hagiographers advertised their holy mothers by describing their homey miracles and domestic skill. Both women experienced superhuman parturitions, multiplied food, and interceded for their spiritual offspring .

Fatima, the mystical nexus of the holy family, rewards her adoptive kin who weep for her slain son, Husayn, and escorts women into paradise on judgment day. Because these women (Mary and Fatima) are both powerful in their own right yet intimately connected to domestic (private) space, they can be employed by authors for a variety of purposes.

Mary and Fatima can signify both female independence and agency and submission and chastity … Whether in the seventh century or the twenty-first, Mary’s and Fatima’s charisma affords scholars and religious alike, an important symbol of community and religiosity that may be manipulated in various ways. The holy women’s attendance within the home subtly stresses the male households’ presence and dominance.

In the end, however, Mary and Fatima – chosen by God as holy vessels and chosen by men as didactic models – manage to provide moral exemplars for women, promote standards of sanctity and faith, and chastise religious and political heresy.