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Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Beauty of Concealment and Concealment of Beauty About The Author (Excerpts from an Interview with the Author) It is now about 18 years when sister Zahra Rahnavard started her political career with the teachers' strike against the pro-American regime of the ex-Shah.

Subsequent to her dismissal from the government service in education department due to her political activities, she took up the cudgels against the Shah's regime with a semi-underground life by writing with the same nom de plume. During this period she wrote a number of books, which were either published clandestinely or could not see the light of the day due to their protracted detention by the regime's censor.

They included the books entitled: "The Emigration of Joseph", "The Revolt of Moses" delineating the Qur'anic philosophy of history, "The Social Strata from Qur'anic Point of View", a politico-sociological study of the holy Qur'an and the short stories entitled "Ali and Mash Madina". While still under prosecution, she succeeded in leaving for abroad.

Several of her lectures to the foreign students were compiled in the form of books: "The Message of Hijab from a Muslim Woman" and "The Rise of a Muslim Woman" which were smuggled and published in Iran. In the last days of the Satanic regime of the Shah, when the state's sensitivity towards such activities subsided, she returned to Iran.

She produced her anthology: "Tempests and the Tulips of Shahrivar" under the nom de plume of Zaynab Boroujerdi after the bloody massacre of 17th Shahrivar (8th September) by the pro-American regime of the ex-Shah, and dedicated it to Imam Khomeini (RA). After the state authorities came to know of the real identity behind her pen name, she was again forced to return to an underground life.

Throughout the Islamic revolution she took herself to delivering lectures in most of the towns and universities, thereby exposing the regime of those days, until at last the revolution was blessed with success. After the revolution, she wrote "Imperialist Roots of the Abolition of Hijab". She soon assumed the position of the Chief Editor of the magazine "Rahe Zaynab", (The Pathway of Zaynab).

During the turbulent days of the Cultural Revolution, she was the only lady who had the honour to teach at the first Faculty of Anthropology founded on the basis of Islamic guidelines.