Zhinous Nemat Mahmoudi or Jin(o)us Ni (August 7, 1928 – December 27, 1981) was an Iranian meteorologist who was a follower of the Baháʼí Faith and a member of its National Spiritual Assembly for Iran. She rose to lead the Iranian meteorological service. After the 1979 Iranian Revolution, state-sanctioned persecution of Baháʼís escalated, with her husband executed in 1980, then her arrest and execution in 1981.
Life
Mahmoudi was born in 1929 in Tehran. One of her parents was a teacher and the other published a magazine. The magazine, Tehran Mosavar, was well established and popular during the reign of the Shah of Iran.
She was intrigued by science and information. She formulated a plan to try and gather together knowledge for safekeeping. Her plan was to use microfilm so that the information would be preserved.
At university she studied physics and meteorology and this led to work in weather forecasting. She was Iran’s first female meteorologist. She rose to lead the National Meteorological Organization which was part of her country's defence ministry. She had the de facto rank of a general. She took an interest in women's rights and she led the Atlas project that was investigating how solar energy might be implemented.
She married Houshang Mahmoudi, who presented programmes for children. They were members of the Baha’i faith and they had three children.
In 1979 the revolution happened and the Baha’i faith and its followers were victimised. They lost their jobs and they lived and worked in secret with their children sent abroad for their education. She rose to be a leader in the Baha'i faith despite some members being killed. She would visit other followers. Her husband disappeared without reason August 1980. She was arrested on 13 December 1981 together with other leaders of her faith at a National Spiritual Assembly. The others were Sirous Rowshani, Kamran Samimi, Mahmoud Majnoob, Jalal Azizi, Mehdi Amin Amin, Ezzat Forouhi and Ghodrat Rouhani. They were killed by firing squad on 27 December.
The whereabouts of her grave were given to her family later. 200 followers of the Baha'i faith were executed up to 1998 in Iran.
Legacy
In 2018, the US House of Representatives was asked to pass a House Resolution (HR274) on the 36th anniversary of Mrs. Jinous Mahmoudi's death. The resolution "condemns the government of Iran’s state-sponsored persecution of its Bahai minority".