Hikmat Abu Zayd
Hikmat Abu Zayd ( Arabic حكمت أبو زيد, DMG Ḥikmat Abū Zaid ; spoken Hekmat Abu Zeid ; * 1922 or 1923 in Schaich Daud ; † July 30, 2011 in Cairo ) was an Egyptian politician and university professor . As Minister of Social Affairs (from 1962) she was the first woman to hold a ministerial office in Egypt . She was considered a staunch supporter of Nasserism . In addition, she had a great influence on early Egyptian social legislation.
Life
Hikmat Abu Zayd was born in 1922 or 1923 to a wealthy and extremely nationalist family in the small town of Shaykh Daud, near the ancient city of al-Qusiyya in Asyut governorate . Her father was an employee of the Egyptian State Railways and was therefore absent from home most of the time, which ensured the family a comparatively high income, but allowed Abu Zayd only sporadic contact with her father in childhood and adolescence. Although her mother was illiterate , Abu Zayd learned to read and was given access to her father's extensive private library .
Abu Zayd received an education that was extraordinarily extensive for Egyptian girls of the time. After successfully graduating at Helwan-girls' school she studied at the University of Cairo to 1940 history . She continued her studies with a teaching certificate in 1941. In 1950 she received her Masters of Arts from the University of St Andrews . Eventually she received her PhD in Educational Psychology from the University of London in 1957 . Until her professorship in 1964, she taught at the Ain-Schams University .
Political career
In 1962 she was appointed to the preparatory committee of the National Congress of People's Forces. During her membership she showed open resistance to the domestic politics of Gamal Abdel Nasser , which deeply impressed him and, despite the different positions, prompted him to make Abu Zayd a member of the government. On September 29, 1962, she was appointed Minister of Social Affairs in the first Ali Sabri government, making her the first woman to hold a ministerial office in Egypt. She stayed in office until 1965. Your appointment can be explained in particular due to Nasser's social reforms, which, among other things, were intended to profoundly reform the poor educational situation and public welfare. That time was marked by a special emancipation of Egyptian women from conservative society, which was to go hand in hand with an outlawing of polygyny and an increased appearance of women in politics. Rawya Ateya and Amina Shukri became the first female members of parliament in 1957, and Karimah al-Sa'id became the first deputy minister in the Ministry of Education in the early 1960s . Together with Hikmat Abu Zayd they represented a new head of the Arab women's movement. In 1963, Abu Zayd was appointed representative for women of the Arab Socialist Union , at a time when the party already had over 250,000 female members.
Her term of office was marked by far-reaching reforms in the previously traditional Islamic social legislation in favor of modern legislation based on the Western model. In a first legal reform, she abolished the oral divorce by the husband that had been in effect until then and made it mandatory for men to obtain a legally binding divorce in a court of law. She started several projects for an adequate education of women living in rural areas and had childcare facilities set up across the board, especially in small towns. Her area of responsibility also included the extremely difficult resettlement of the Nubians due to the construction of the Aswan Dam and the establishment of new Nubian settlements. Her contribution to the resettlement of the Nubians earned her the nickname " Merciful Heart of the Revolution " from President Nasser . Nevertheless, in retrospect, the massive resettlement of the Nubians is one of the most controversial issues of their tenure.
Exile in Libya
With the death of Nasser in 1970 and the takeover of power by Anwar al-Sadat , Abu Zayd's political career ended abruptly. In order to avoid political persecution of former members of the government, she and her husband moved to Libya in 1974 , where they were very welcome by the ruler Muammar al-Gaddafi because of their nasserist sentiments . From then on she taught political science at Al-Fatih University in Tripoli , at the same time she repeatedly published writings against the new Egyptian government. She became one of the leading positions in the Egyptian National Front, which was formed in Damascus in 1980 under General Saʿd al-Shadhili . Because of her public condemnation of the peace agreement between al-Sadat and Israel , she was accused of high treason , terrorism and espionage . She was stripped of her Egyptian citizenship, which made her stateless . Extensive legal proceedings began before a court restored her Egyptian citizenship and acquitted her of the allegations.
Later years and death
In March 1992 she returned to Egypt with her husband. She continued to work as a publicist and condemned the Gulf War , the Madrid Conference, and Israeli and American imperialism , among other things . She wrote articles for the al-Osboa newspaper , in which she discussed imperialism and Arab unity. At the end of 2010 she was admitted to the Anglo-American Hospital in Cairo due to several broken bones, where she was visited by Farkhonda Hassan and Suzanne Mubarak . Shortly before her death, she gave an interview in the hospital in which she clearly defended Nasser's policy. She died there on July 30, 2011.
Awards
literature
- Margot Badran: Femiists, Islam and Nation: The Making of the Modern Egypt , Princeton University Press 1996, ISBN 978-0-691-02605-3
- Arthur Goldschmidt: Biographical Dictionary of Modern Egypt American University in Cairo Press 2000, ISBN 978-977-424-579-4
- Mona Russel: "Abu Zayd, Hikmat" in Mattar, Philip: Encyclopedia of the Modern Middle East & North Africa. Detroit 2004, ISBN 978-0-02-865770-7
Web links
Individual evidence
- ^ Abu Zayd, Hikmat www.encyclopedia.com (English), accessed June 5, 2017
- ^ Sabin M. Shukri: The International Who's Who of the Arab World (2nd Edition) p. 31, London 1984, ISBN 978-0-9506122-1-8
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Abu Zayd, Hikmat |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Abu Zayd, Hekmat |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Egyptian politician |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1922 or 1923 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Shaykh Daud |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 30, 2011 |
| Place of death | Cairo |