Zainab al-Ghazali

Zainab al-Ghazali ( Arabic زينب الغزالي, DMG Zainab al-Ġazālī ; born January 2, 1917 ; died August 3, 2005 ) was an Egyptian Islamist propagandist. She is the founder of the “Community of Muslim Women” (jamāʿat as-sayyidāt al-muslimāt) , which is close to the Muslim Brotherhood under Hasan al-Bannā , and which is said to have reached around three million members, and under President Nasser (1918–1970) of the Government was dissolved.

Live and act

Zainab al-Ghazali was born in 1917. Her father, a merchant, had received religious training at al-Azhar in Cairo . The “Community of Muslim Women” (jamaat as-sayyidat al-muslimat) , which she founded at a young age (1936), was dissolved in 1964 by the Egyptian government. She taught women at the Ibn Tulun Mosque .

She believed that Islam guaranteed women freedom and economic, political and social rights.

She became known for her "prison report by a Muslim sister" (أيام من حياتي, DMG Ayyām min ḥayāt 'Days of My Life'), published in English under the title Return of the Pharaoh: Memoir in Nasir's Prison (The word “ Pharaoh ” in Return of the Pharaoh - “Return of the Pharaoh” - refers to the Egyptian President Nasser), which relates to what happened at the time of President Nasser in the 1960s and is an autobiographical account of her being indicted and imprisoned. She was tortured while waiting for the trial. She was given amnesty under the new President Anwar as-Sadat in the early 1970s.

Zainab al-Ghazali died in 2005.

Works (selection)

• Ayyām min ayātī

(English) Return of the Pharaoh: memoir in Nasir's prison . Translated by Mokrane Guezzou. Leicester [u. a.]: Islamic Foundation , 1994; ISBN 0-86037-240-5 (digital copies : 1 , 2 )

(German) prison report of a Muslim sister (excerpts in Andreas Meier, see under literature)

See also

• Huda Sha'arawi
• Islam and the state under al-Sadat

literature

• Prison report of a Muslim sister, excerpts, in: Andreas Meier (Hrsg.): Political currents in modern Islam. Sources and Comments. Federal Agency for Civic Education , BpB, Bonn 1995 ISBN 3-89331-239-0 ; also Peter Hammer Verlag, Wuppertal 1995 ISBN 3-87294-724-9 ( table of contents )
• “To an Islamist Activist; From Days of My Life ”, in: Princeton Readings in Islamist Thought : Texts and Contexts from al-Banna to Bin Laden . Edited and with an introduction by Roxanne L. Euben & Muhammad Qasim Zaman; 2009; ISBN 978-0-691-13588-5 ( partial view in the Google book search, table of contents )
• Pauline Lewis: “ Zainab al-Ghazali: Pioneer of Islamist Feminism ” - michiganjournalhistory.files.wordpress.com (2014)
• Historical Dictionary of Islam. Second edition. Ludwig W. Adamec (Ed.). Historical Dictionaries of Religions, Philosophies, and Movements , No. 95. The Scarecrow Press, Inc. Lanham, Maryland • Toronto • Plymouth, UK 2009

Web links

• The Egyptian Muslim Sisters (J. Millard Burr)
• Egypt's Muslim Sisterhood
• Zaynab Al-Ghazali

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Muslim Women's Association (Jama'at al-Sayyidat al-Muslimat) / Society of the Muslim Brothers Muslim Ladies' Association / Association of Muslim Women, etc.
2. ^ Historical Dictionary of Islam. Second Edition (2009: 109)
3. ^ Historical Dictionary of Islam. Second Edition (2009: 109): “She believed that Islam guaranteed women's freedom, and economic, political, and social rights.”