Doria Shafiq

Infobox Person


image_size = 150px
name = Doria Shafiq
_ar. درية شفيق
caption =
birth_date = 1908
birth_place = Tanta, Egypt
death_date = 1975
death_place = Cairo
occupation = author, feminist, revolutionary, women's rights activist
spouse =

Doria Shafiq (1908 – 1975) ( _ar. درية شفيق) was one of the very first women who led to women liberation movement in Egypt at the beginning of the mid twentieth century. [Cite news |title=A Diwan of contemporary life |url= http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2001/536/chrncls.htm|work=Al-Ahram Weekly |date=2001-06-6|accessdate=2008-08-12] and its because of her the Egyptian women has the right to elect and nominate in the Egyptian constitution she was the founder literature patrols, a researcher and a freedom fighter against the British occupation in Egypt.She was born in Tanta city in Nile delta and studied in the French mission school she was sent among the first female students by the Egyptian Ministry of Education to study at Sorbonne University in Paris on the government expense and it’s the same university that she got her PhD in philosophy from, and the issue of the treatise was "woman in Islam" and she proved in her treatise that Islam has given to the Muslim women "fair rights".

On her return back from France accompanied by her husband, the dean of the faculty of arts in Cairo University has rejected hiring her in the university as "she is a woman". Princess Shuvekar (the first wife of King Fuad I of Egypt), has offered her to be the chief manager of the new woman magazine and it was the first magazine to be written in Arabic and directed to teach and educate the Egyptian woman it was founded in the late forty's, a movement to (liberation of Egyptian woman) known as "Nile girls union". [Cite news |title=Speaking for the other half|url= http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2001/523/sc3.htm|work=Al-Ahram Weekly |date=2001-03-7|accessdate=2008-08-12]

She founded a movement to eradicate the ignorance and illiteracy among the girls and women in many populated regions in Cairo So she founded a school to eliminate the ignorance and illiteracy in Boulaq area.

torming Parliament

In February 1951 she led a demonstration, accompanied by 1500 women broke into the headquarters of "the Egyptian Chamber of Deputies" (parliament), where the aim that the Council consider seriously and Chairperson of the issues and demands of Egyptian women, and regarded by many as this moment is an historic moment for the women's movement.

After a week of the demonstration was presented to the Council Act provides for the granting of Egyptian women the right to vote and stand for parliament.

truggle against occupation

In 1951, she prepared by the Task paramilitary Egyptian women of resistance against the British army units in the Suez Canal included a willingness to fight and train nurses to the field. It also tried to lead a demonstration of the union's daughter Nile, where they had surrounded the British Barclays Bank in Cairo in January 1951 and was invited to Boycott.

Union Party Bent Nile

After the Egyptian Revolution of 1952 she asked the government to transform the "daughter of the Nile" to a political party were it to become a party "Union of Bint Nile", the first feminist political party in Egypt.

trike and isolation

Time of preparation for the problem by the Government of revolution to a new Egyptian Constitution in 1954, Doria Shafiq protested the absence of a single woman among the members of the Committee, and accompanied by other women on hunger strike for 10 days, [Cite news |title=A Diwan of contemporary life |url= http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/1999/420/chrncls.htm|work=Al-Ahram Weekly |date=1999-03-17|accessdate=2008-08-12] timely and counting of President Muhammad Naguib in a letter to the transfer of the Governor of Cairo and then That the new Egyptian constitution "will ensure that women's political right," and has achieved is to grant Egyptian women the right to vote and be elected in general elections for the first time in the history of modern Egypt.

Because of the changing political situation in the country after the revolution, and the absence of genuine political activity,In 1957 Doria Shafiq was put under house arrest after a hunger strike against General Abdel Nasser, remained in seclusion about 18 years. [Cite news |title=Speaking for the other half|url= http://www.gwsafrica.org/teaching/bio%20links.html|work=gwsafrica.org|accessdate=2008-08-12]

Versions translation and literary work

Issued several periodicals including literary magazine New Woman magazine and "daughter of the Nile" and magazine Nestling small children, in the years of isolation doria Shafiq translated the Quran into English and French, also draw several offices of poetry and books in addition to her own memoires .

Doria Shafiq died in 1975, when she fell from the balcony of her home in Zamalek, Cairo.

Books about Doria Shafiq

"Various woman" by Cynthia Nelson (research study in 1940's) [http://www.upf.com/book.asp?id=NELSOF96] [http://www.amazon.com/Doria-Shafik-Egyptian-Feminist-Woman/dp/9774244133]

References