Shirin Ebadi

The judge who turned her courtroom into a classroom for human rights

Most people know Shirin Ebadi as the first Muslim woman to win the Nobel Peace Prize, but few know that she spent years after Iran's revolution working as a clerk in the very courts where she once presided as a judge. When the Islamic Republic stripped women of the right to serve as judges in 1979, Ebadi—who had been one of Iran's first female judges—found herself filing papers and serving tea to the men who now occupied her former position.

Timeline of Pivotal Moments

• 1947: Born in Hamadan, Iran, to a family that valued education for daughters as much as sons
• 1969: Graduated from University of Tehran Law School, one of only a few women in her class
• 1975: Became Iran's first female judge at age 28, appointed to Tehran's city court
• 1979: Islamic Revolution strips women of right to serve as judges; demoted to clerk position
• 1992: Forced into early retirement, begins private law practice focusing on human rights cases
• 1996: Founds Society for Protecting the Rights of the Child in Iran
• 2000: Sentenced to prison and banned from practicing law for "disturbing public opinion"
• 2003: Awarded Nobel Peace Prize "for her efforts for democracy and human rights, especially the rights of women and children"
• 2009: Flees Iran following post-election crackdown, begins life in exile
• 2012: Iranian authorities freeze her Nobel Prize money and confiscate her medal
• Present: Continues human rights advocacy from London, unable to return to Iran

The story of Shirin Ebadi is the story of a woman who refused to disappear. When Iran's Islamic Revolution swept away her career as a judge in 1979, she could have retreated into private life like many professional women of her generation. Instead, she transformed her forced exile from the bench into a different kind of courtroom—one where she defended the defenseless and taught an entire generation about justice.

Born into a middle-class family in 1947, Ebadi grew up in an Iran where women's opportunities were expanding under the Shah's modernization efforts. Her father, a commercial lawyer, encouraged her legal ambitions at a time when few Iranian families would consider such a path for their daughters. She excelled in law school and quickly rose through the ranks of Iran's judiciary, becoming the country's first female judge at just 28 years old. For four years, she presided over cases with the confidence of someone who believed the arc of history bent toward progress for women like herself.

Then came 1979, and everything changed overnight. The Islamic Revolution didn't just transform Iran's government—it rewrote the rules about who could hold power and how. Women were deemed too emotional and religiously unsuited to serve as judges. Ebadi, along with other female judges, was stripped of her position and offered a choice: become a clerk in the courts where she once presided, or leave the legal system entirely.

The Nobel moment itself came as a complete surprise. Ebadi was in Paris when she received the call from the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Her first reaction wasn't joy but disbelief—she asked them to repeat the announcement three times. When the reality sank in, she immediately thought of her daughters and called them in Tehran. "I wanted them to know that their mother had not been forgotten by the world," she later recalled. The prize money of $1.3 million was significant, but what mattered more was the global platform it provided for causes that had been silenced in Iran.

The politics surrounding her Nobel Prize were complex from the start. While the international community celebrated the committee's choice, Iranian authorities were furious. Conservative newspapers dismissed her as a "Western puppet," and government officials questioned why the prize went to someone they viewed as unrepresentative of Iranian women. The regime's anger only intensified when Ebadi used her Nobel platform to criticize Iran's human rights record. In 2012, in an act of petty vindictiveness, Iranian authorities confiscated her Nobel medal from a safety deposit box and froze her prize money, claiming she owed back taxes.

What made Ebadi's approach to human rights work distinctive was her insistence on working within Islamic law rather than rejecting it entirely. She argued that Islam, properly interpreted, was compatible with human rights and women's equality. This position put her at odds with both secular feminists who saw religion as inherently oppressive and religious conservatives who viewed her interpretations as heretical. "The discriminatory plight of women in Islamic states, whether in the sphere of civil law or in the realm of social, political and cultural justice, has its roots in the patriarchal and male-dominated culture prevailing in these societies, not in Islam itself," she wrote in her memoir.

Her legal practice became a masterclass in creative resistance. When authorities banned her from practicing law in 2000, she continued taking cases unofficially, training younger lawyers to represent her clients in court while she prepared their defenses from behind the scenes. She specialized in cases that others wouldn't touch: defending political prisoners, representing families of murdered intellectuals, and advocating for children caught in Iran's harsh justice system. Each case was both a legal battle and a form of public education about rights that many Iranians didn't know they possessed.

The human cost of her excellence was enormous. Her marriage ended in divorce, partly due to the pressures of her activism and the constant surveillance and harassment her family endured. Her daughters grew up with a mother who was frequently traveling, in hiding, or in prison. "I have paid a heavy price for my beliefs," she reflected. "But I have never regretted the path I chose." The 2009 post-election protests in Iran forced her into a exile that continues today—she cannot return to her homeland without facing imprisonment.

The "Nobel effect" transformed Ebadi from a local activist into a global spokesperson for human rights in the Islamic world. While the platform amplified her voice internationally, it also made her more dangerous to Iranian authorities and ultimately contributed to her forced exile. She used the prize money to establish the Defenders of Human Rights Center, which documented abuses and provided legal aid until authorities shut it down in 2008.

Her approach to advocacy was deeply personal and practical. Rather than making grand pronouncements about democracy, she focused on individual cases that illustrated broader injustices. She represented Zahra Kazemi, the Iranian-Canadian photographer who died in police custody, and the family of Ezzat Ebrahimnezhad, a student killed in the 1999 university protests. Each case became a window into Iran's systematic human rights violations.

What distinguished Ebadi from many other dissidents was her refusal to demonize her opponents or abandon hope for reform from within. Even in exile, she continued to believe that Iran could change through the efforts of its own people rather than external pressure. This position sometimes frustrated Western supporters who wanted her to take harder lines against the Iranian government, but it reflected her deep understanding of Iranian society and her commitment to sustainable change.

Revealing Quotes

On her demotion from judge to clerk: "The day I was told I could no longer be a judge, I felt like I had been buried alive. But then I realized that if they could take away my robe, they could not take away my knowledge of the law or my commitment to justice."

From her Nobel acceptance speech: "I am an Iranian, a descendant of Cyrus the Great. The very emperor who proclaimed at the pinnacle of power 2,500 years ago that he 'would not reign over the people if they did not wish it.' And he promised not to force any person to change his religion and faith and guaranteed freedom for all."

On working within Islamic law: "The discriminatory plight of women in Islamic states has its roots in the patriarchal and male-dominated culture prevailing in these societies, not in Islam itself. This culture does not tolerate freedom and democracy, just as it does not believe in the equal rights of men and women."

On the cost of her activism: "When we were children, we were told that we had a motherland. I had a motherland, but my motherland did not want me. This is the tragedy of people like me."

On hope despite exile: "Democracy is not an event, it's a process. And this process in Iran has begun and cannot be stopped, even if they put all of us in prison."

Shirin Ebadi's story teaches us that sometimes the most powerful form of resistance is simply refusing to accept that injustice is permanent. Her journey from judge to clerk to Nobel laureate illustrates how setbacks can become setups for greater impact, and how individual courage can illuminate universal truths about human dignity. Her insistence on working within her own cultural and religious framework, rather than abandoning it, offers a model for change that respects tradition while demanding progress. Most importantly, her life demonstrates that the fight for human rights is not about grand gestures but about the daily choice to stand up for those who cannot stand up for themselves—even when the cost is everything you thought you wanted from life.