CAIRO -

In an age where men and women do not mix, an Egyptian woman belonging to Upper Egypt and a wealthy political family raised the voice to object to ancient customs and traditions, establish the Egyptian women’s movement and lead women’s demonstrations against the British occupier, call for Egyptian women’s rights and change their reality and grant them the right to education and work as no woman had done before her;

This is Mrs. Hoda Shaarawy.

Her name is Nour al-Huda Muhammad Sultan, she was born in a village belonging to the city of Minya (southern Egypt) on June 23, 1879, and her father, Muhammad Sultan Pasha, was the first speaker of the parliament in Egypt during the reign of Khedive Tawfiq, and she passed away on December 12, 1947, which corresponds to today's date.

She took her name from her husband and cousin "Ali Shaarawy", whom she married at an early age, not exceeding 13 years, and he was 40 years older than her, and she could not refuse him because of family traditions.

Al-Ahram newspaper says that Hoda Shaarawy lived through harsh social conditions as a result of the complete lack of awareness in the Eastern family, and was angry at her younger brother's preference for treatment despite his being 10 years younger than her.

Marriage prevented her from practicing her hobbies, and she became severely depressed, so she traveled to Europe to recover, to get to know the leaders of the French women's movement, which inspired her in her activism to liberate Egyptian women.

This era was known as the "Harem Era", where men and women were separated in councils and homes, and where women were prevented from teaching or appearing in public, and most of the time they did not leave their homes.

Hoda was prevented from formal education like her brother, but her high social level gave her advantages that are not usually available to the rest of the girls of her generation, as she received her lessons at home and learned Arabic, Turkish, Persian, calligraphy and piano.

political struggle

Shaarawy was the most prominent woman participating in public life, and founded an association for the care of children in 1907, and made efforts to persuade the nascent Egyptian University to allocate a hall for women's lectures in 1908, and opened a school for girls in 1910.

She led the women’s demonstrations in 1919 against the British colonialists, influenced by her husband Ali Shaarawy’s political activism during the revolution. During the revolution, she founded and supervised the Women’s Wafd Party Committee.

While the Egyptians welcomed the national hero Saad Zaghloul in 1921, Huda Shaarawy called for raising the marriage age for girls to 16 years, and also called for raising the marriage age for boys to 18 years, and launched her call for restrictions on the unilateral divorce of men to women.

Hoda also struggled against the phenomenon of polygamy, and she struggled to receive education for women, to go out to professional and political work, and to educate them.

The union defended the rights of Egyptian women, and called for the reform of laws that limit their freedom, such as laws regulating marriage, custody and divorce.

Shaarawy soon resigned from the Wafd Party when she found its politicians denying her claim to reform the conditions of Egyptian women and girls, according to Al-Ahram newspaper.

She co-founded the Arab Women's Union and took over its presidency in 1935, and she also held the position of Vice-President of the Committee of the International Women's Union in the same year.

Huda Shaarawy also participated in international conferences around the world, most notably the Paris Conference in 1926, and the Amsterdam and Berlin Conferences in 1927.

Hoda Shaarawy co-founded and headed the Arab Women's Union in 1935 (Egyptian Press)

Never depart from tradition

The "Hakawy Al-Jawadi" program - on Al-Jazeera Mubasher - tells that Hoda Shaarawy never departed from the traditions of her upbringing in Upper Egypt, and she did not brag about her lineage to her famous political father, due to some doubts about his patriotism, and that she preferred lineage to the name of her husband, the famous patriot and one of the most famous National fighters with Saad Zagloul.

Where Mrs. Safiya Zagloul invited patriots to participate in the meeting at her home in the House of the Nation, Shaarawy united the efforts of women for political participation through the Women's Union, and was distinguished by encouraging people, and she sent Egyptians to education in France at her personal expense, including the former editor-in-chief of Al-Ahram Ahmed El-Sawy.

The program added that she was rich in soul and conscience, a woman with a position, she had never claimed for herself a role that was not for her, she was not a fiancée and she was summoning a university woman to read her speeches.

The Palestinian cause

The Palestinian cause was not lost on Huda Shaarawy, who organized a women’s conference to defend Palestine in 1938, and called for organizing feminist efforts by collecting materials, clothing, volunteering in nursing and ambulance services, and when the United Nations resolution was issued to divide Palestine and internationalize Jerusalem in November 1947, the militant lady was sent A strongly worded objection letter to the United Nations Headquarters, according to the website of the National Council for Women.

Granddaughter remembers

Her granddaughter, writer Sania Shaarawy, says that the development and positivity that Egyptian women enjoy today is a natural fruit of the struggle of Huda Shaarawy and the enlightened men of her time. She is also proud of the role of Egyptian women in the January 25, 2011 revolution, as was her grandmother's participation in the 1919 revolution.

And the granddaughter - whose grandmother left when she was 3 years old - remembers, "When she was carrying me, I felt solid and kind at the same time, and she would ask us to go up to the roof of the house on the corner of Champollion Street and Qasr al-Nil in front of the British army barracks in order to raise the flag of Egypt."

Sania studied English literature in Egypt, and wrote a book entitled "Unveiling the Life of Hoda Shaarawy, the Pioneer of the Egyptian Feminist Movement," in which she talked about her grandmother's role and struggle.

independent track

In the introduction to her book, the writer Tariq al-Numan defended Hoda Shaarawy's accusation of adopting a Western colonial discourse in her call for the liberation of Arab women, an accusation faced by the writer Qassem Amin.

Al-Numan believes that Shaarawy’s speech and Qassem Amin’s statements cannot be limited to the context of being affected by colonialism, noting that “they are subjective contexts resulting from an independent path that interacted with another context. ".

Hoda Shaarawy engraved her name in letters of Nour as the first pioneer of the Egyptian women's movement (websites)

Part of the history of Egypt

In an article in the official Al-Ahram newspaper, writer Aisha Abdel Ghaffar believes that Hoda Shaarawy's history is part of Egypt's luminous history, although it was almost extinguished due to opposition and besieging of her achievements because she belongs to an ancient, authentic and wealthy political family.

Aisha Abdel Ghaffar adds that Huda Shaarawy was influenced by the feminist movement and the demand for gender justice, which was not limited to the Western world only, but was an international movement that spread throughout the world. ".

her death

Hoda Shaarawy died at the age of 68, on December 12, 1947, after a march full of struggle for the cause of Arab women, and after her name was engraved in letters from Nour as the first pioneer of the Egyptian women's movement.

In 2004, the artist Ferdous Abdel Hamid presented the character of Hoda Shaarawy in the series "Heliopolis" written by Yousry El-Gendy and directed by Mohamed Fadel.