Encyclopedia of Islam

Shaarawi, Huda

  

613  J

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her son and daughter. However, in 1909 Shaarawi 

entered a new period of activism and leadership. 

She founded a secular women’s philanthropist 

organization dedicated to providing medical care 

to poor women and 

children

, and she organized a 

series of lectures for and by women. Five years later 

she founded two additional organizations similarly 

aimed at meeting the needs of different classes 

of women: the Women’s Refinement Association 

and the Ladies Literary Improvement Society. The 

activities of these years prepared her well for her 

next role as leader in the nationalist struggle for 

independence. In 1919 she organized the first 

women’s demonstration against British rule. She 

worked closely with her husband and other leaders 

of the nationalist Wafd Party, and she was named 

president of the party’s Women’s Central Commit-

tee. However, upon the granting of limited inde-

pendence from Britain and the establishment of a 

constitution in 1923, Sharawi and other women 

activists were disappointed. Their demands for 

suffrage were not met, nor were women’s rights sig-

nificantly improved under the new constitution.

Thereafter her activism became more markedly 

feminist in character, and the same year she helped 

to found the Egyptian Feminist Union (EFU). At 

the end of her return journey from an international 

women’s conference, which she attended as the 

EFU delegate, she publicly removed her face veil 

as an act of protest. This remains the act for which 

she is best known in Egypt today. In some ways, the 

EFU served to reflect secular Egyptian nationalism 

as Christian and Muslim middle- and upper-class 

women worked together to achieve common aims. 

Their concerns included securing women’s rights 

to participate at all levels of Egyptian politics as 

well as in the labor market and the educational sys-

tem, and demanding reforms to the personal status 

codes. The members of the EFU continued to par-

ticipate in the struggle for full independence from 

Britain. Shaarawi remained especially interested in 

providing health care to poor women and children 

throughout her life, as evidenced by the work of 

the EFU and her private philanthropy.

Shaarawi utilized various methods to advance 

her feminist causes, including founding two jour-

nals, the French language L’Egyptienne in 1925 and 

the Arabic language Al-Misriyya in 1937. She was 

also a strong supporter of international women’s 

rights movements, serving on the executive board 

of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance for 

many years. She was instrumental in founding the 

Arab Feminist Union in 1945, and she served as 

that organization’s first president. She remained 

an ardent Egyptian nationalist throughout her life 

and was awarded the state’s highest decoration 

in 1947, the year she died. Shaarawi’s legacy is 

widely respected in e

gypt

 today. She is remem-

bered for having laid the foundation for women 

to lead more publicly productive lives.

See also 

hUman

 

rights

; 

secUlarism

.

Shauna Huffaker