Mother's Day

====Iran====
[[File:Commemorative gold medal issued in the Pahlavi era on the occasion of Mother's Day.jpg|thumb|Commemorative gold medal issued in the [[Pahlavi dynasty|Pahlavi]] era on the occasion of Mother's Day, dated 1975. '''Obv''': Bust of Empress [[Farah Pahlavi]]. '''Rev''': Mother and children standing around a seated Farah Pahlavi, holding open book]]
In [[Iran]], Mother's Day is celebrated on 20 [[Jumada al-thani]]. This is the sixth month in the Islamic calendar (a lunar calendar) and every year the holiday falls on a different day of the Gregorian calendar. This is the birthday anniversary of [[Fatimah]], the Islamic prophet [[Muhammad]]'s only daughter according to [[Shia Islam]].<ref name="debano">{{citation |chapter= Singing against Silence: Celebrating Women and Music and the Fourth Jasmine Festival |author= Wendy S. DeBano |title= Music and the Play of Power in the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia |series= Soas Musicology Series |editor= Laudan Nooshin |edition= illustrated |publisher= [[Ashgate Publishing]] |year= 2009 |isbn= 978-0754634577 |page= 234 (footnote 18) |chapter-url= https://books.google.com/books?id=gAR15vJcC6wC&pg=PA234 |quote= In 2002, Fatemeh's birthday celebration (observed according to the ''hejri'' calendar) fell on Thursday 29 August (20 Jamādi 1423) (...) Fatemeh's birth date is also currently used to mark Mother's Day in Iran, ritually recollecting, emphasising and reinscribing her role as a loyal mother, wife, and daughter. Prior to the revolution, Mother's Day was used to promote the gender ideologies of the Pahlavi regime. }}</ref><ref name="iranpresident">{{cite web| url = http://www.president.ir/en/print.php?ArtID=10405 | title = Ahmadinejad highlights women's significant role in society | date = 24 June 2008 | publisher=Presidency of The Islamic Republic of Iran News Service | access-date =19 July 2008 | quote = (...) the occasion of the Mother's Day marking the birthday anniversary of [[Fatimah|Hazrat Fatemeh Zahra]] (SA), the beloved daughter of Prophet [[Mohammad]]. The day fell on 23 June [2008] |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20090516000919/http://www.president.ir/en/print.php?ArtID=10405 |archive-date= 16 May 2009 }}</ref> On this day, banners reading "''Ya Fatemeah'' (O! Fatemeh)" are displayed on "government buildings, private buildings, public streets and car windows."<ref name="debano"/> Mother's Day was originally observed on 16 December but the date was changed after the [[Iranian Revolution]] in 1979. The celebration is both Women's Day (replacing International Women's Day) and Mother's Day.<ref name="debano" /><ref name="haeri1">{{Cite book| chapter= Obedience versus Autonomy: Women and Fundamentalism in Iran and Pakistan |author= Shahla Haeri |title = Fundamentalisms and Society: Reclaiming the Sciences, the Family, and Education |series= The Fundamentalism Project |volume= 2 |editor1=Martin E. Marty |editor2=R. Scott Appleby |editor3=Helen Hardacre |editor4=Everett Mendelsohn |edition= 2 |publisher= University of Chicago Press |year= 1993 |isbn= 978-0226508801 | page= 197 |chapter-url= https://books.google.com/books?id=FoF5jCEepGkC&pg=PA197 |quote= The more women try to engage the fundamentalists in their own discourse, negotiating and bargaining over their rights (Islamic or otherwise), the more frequently has the Islamic regime emphasized the ideal, the Fatimah model, the quintessential obedient woman. The fundamentalist regime in Iran has yet to resolve its central dilemma regarding the role of women and male-female relationships: should women emulate a Zainab – autonomous and assertive – or a Fatimah – obedient and submissive? Given the logic of an Islamic marriage and the worldview it implies, the fundamentalist regime has shown a marked preference for the latter. Thus Woman's Day and Mother's Day in Iran are celebrated on the occasion of Fatimah's birth. }}</ref>

In 1960, the Institute for Women Protection adopted the Western holiday and established it on 25 [[Solar Hijri calendar|Azar]] (16 December), the date the Institute was founded. The Institute's action had the support of Empress [[Farah Pahlavi]], the wife of the last Shah of Persia, who promoted the construction of maternity clinics in remote parts of the country to commemorate the day.<ref name="Sabet">{{citation |title= Conceiving Citizens: Women and the Politics of Motherhood in Iran |author= Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet |edition= illustrated |publisher= Oxford University Press |year= 2011 |isbn=978-0195308860 |pages= 201–206 |url=  https://books.google.com/books?id=xbbT0Rsc6EMC&pg=PA202 }}</ref> [[Pahlavi regime]] used the holiday to promote "gender ideologies" of the regime.<ref name="debano"/> The Shah's government honored and gave awards to women who represented the idealized view of the regime, including mothers who had many healthy children.<ref name="Sabet"/>

According to Shahla Haeri, the Islamic Republic government has used the holiday to "control and channel women's movements" and to promote role models for the traditional concept of family.<ref name="haeri2">{{citation |chapter= Women, Religion, and Political Agency in Iran |author= Shahla Haeri |title= Contemporary Iran:Economy, Society |editor= Ali Gheissari |edition= illustrated |publisher= Oxford University Press |year= 2009 |isbn= 978-0195378481 |page= 137 |chapter-url= https://books.google.com/books?id=KTou9VwtQfkC&pg=PA137 |quote= Such [feminist] gatherings would not have been so remarkable had they not happened against the backdrop of the regime's ceaseless effort to discourage, even harass, women activists and their supporters. Within the narrative of Islamization, the state's argument has been, all along, that such gatherings are representative of the culture of imperialism, and hence are subversive and against the public good and the moral order. Above all, the Islamic State has tried hard to co-opt women by appropriating the terminology and language: "protecting women," "respect for women," "gender complementarity." Accordingly, in order to accommodate, and yet control and channel women's movements and activities, the state commemorates the birthday of Fatemeh, the Prophet Muhammad's daughter, as a national woman's/mother's day. }}</ref> Fatimah is seen by these critics as the chosen model of a woman completely dedicated to certain traditionally sanctioned feminine roles.<ref>{{Cite book| chapter-url = http://www.owu.edu/~aamahdi/globalization-final.doc | title = Iran Encountering Globalization: Problems and Prospects | chapter = Iranian Women: Between Islamization and Globalization | author= Mahdi, Ali Akbar | publisher=Ali Mohammadi. London and New York: Routledge/Curzon | year = 2003 | isbn = 978-0-415-30827-4 | quote = This Shia vision of family is based on a nostalgic and idealistic notion of Imam Ali's family in which Fatima Zahra (the Prophet Mohammad's daughter) dedicated herself to both her husband and Islamic cause. Other role models for women often cited by the officials and ideologues of the IRI are Khadijah, the prophet Mohammad's wife, and Zaynab, daughter of the first Shi'i (sic) Imam Ali. In fact, the IRI [Islamic Republic of Iran] replaced the universal Mother's Day with Fatima Zahar's (sic) birthday. |chapter-format=DOC |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20060901182436/http://go.owu.edu/~aamahdi/globalization-final.doc |archive-date=1 September 2006 }}</ref> However, supporters of the choice contend that there is much more to her life story than simply such "traditional" roles.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.ias.edu/ideas/2016/ansari-shiite-women|title=The Shiite Interpretation of the Status of Women|work=Institute for Advanced Study|access-date=11 October 2017|language=en}}</ref>