Encyclopedia of Islam

Further reading: Massimo Campanini, “Al-Ghazzali.” In 

History of Islamic Philosophy, edited by Seyyed Hossein 

Nasr and Oliver Leaman, 258–274 (London: Routledge, 

1996); Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, Al-Ghazali’s Path to Sufism: 

His Deliverance from Error, al-Munqidh min al-dalal. Trans-

lated by R. J. McCarthy (Louisville, Ky.: Fons Vitae, 

2000); W. Montgomery Watt, The Faith and Practice of 

al-Ghazali (London: George Allen & Unwin, 1953).

Ghazali, Zaynab al-

 

(1917–2005)  the most 

important female leader in the Egyptian Muslim 

Brotherhood during the 20th century and founder of 

the Society of Muslim Ladies

Zaynab al-Ghazali was the daughter of a mer-

chant and Islamic teacher who was educated at 

the famous 

al

-a

zhar

 University in c

airo

, e

gypt

.

She studied the q

Uran

, quranic commentary 

(

tafsir

) and 

hadith

 at home in her youth but 

never attained more than a secondary school 

edUcation

. She became a member of Huda 

Shaarawi’s Egyptian Feminist Union, the coun-

try’s first organized 

Women

’s rights movement. 

Dissatisfied with the liberal, secular orientation 

of this movement, in 1936, she quit it when she 

was 18 years of age and launched the Society 

of Muslim Ladies, which sought to promote 

piety among women and address social prob-

lems within an Islamic framework. As part of its 

daawa

 (Muslim outreach) activities, this organi-

zation conducted religious classes for women at 

mosqUes

, trained them to preach, and provided 

social services to the needy. It also published a 

journal for Muslim women from 1954 to 1956 

called al-Sayyidat al-Muslimat (Muslim women). 

Al-Ghazali said that when the Egyptian govern-

ment forced her to disband the organization in 

1964, the association’s membership had grown 

to 3 million throughout the country. In 1949, 

she joined the m

Uslim

 b

rotherhood

 at the invi-

tation of its founder, h

asan

 

al

-b

anna

 (d. 1949), 

and her society worked in cooperation with the 

Muslim Sisters to help families who suffered 

from the campaign a

bd

 

al

-n

asir

, Egypt’s presi-

dent from 1956 to 1970, was waging against the 

brotherhood in the 1950s and early 1960s. She 

conducted secret meetings with the brotherhood 

and their supporters to study Islamic literature 

and discuss plans for bringing about i

slamic

government

. She is credited with helping to dis-

seminate the writings of the Islamic ideologist 

s

ayyid

  q

Utb

 (d. 1966), which were composed 

during the years of his imprisonment for engag-

ing in antigovernment activities.

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