Classes of Ladies of Cloistered Spaces: Writing Feminist History through Biography in Fin-de-siecle Egypt

Zaynab Fawwaz (c.1860-1914) was as a forceful voice in support of women’s rights to education and work choices in colonial-era Egypt. Her volume of 453 women’s lives, al-Durr al-manthur fi tabaqat rabbat al-khudur (Pearls scattered in times and places: Classes of ladies of cloistered spaces, 1893-6) – featuring Boudicca, Catherine the Great, Zaynab (the granddaughter of the Prophet Muhammad), Victoria Woodhull, the Turkish poet Sirri Hanim and many others – built on the Arabic-Islamic biogr...