The most prominent figures of the Feminism movement in Egypt
11. Nazli Fazel
Nazli Fazel was from the upper stratum of the Egyptian society, who had completed her education on the western method and had adopted the western style and attitude, and she made parties in his house and mixed with men there. Most of all, Lord Cromer (the most trusted British person) was her guest.
12. Qasim Amin
Qasim Amin was a young man who grew up in a Turkish, Egyptian family and in a region where the level of intelligence is unusual. At the age of 20, he received a bachelor’s degree in French law, while at that time, ordinary people only received the elementary degree at the age of 25.
Therefore, the opportunists who were looking for elites hunted him so that they could lead the nation astray through him. So, he was sent to France to continue his education for an important matter.
It is interesting that Qasim Amin, before going to France, received a treatise from an orientalist, whose author had accused Islam of degrading women and not giving them human value. When Qasim Amin read this treatise, it evoked his jealousy and, as he mentioned his memoirs, he decided to answer this orientalist and refute his slanders. But when he returned from France, he was not the former Qasim Amin, and he had agreed with that orientalist. The trip to France at this young age made him turned over and, he returned to Egypt with a new thought, mind and face. While he returned to Egypt, he called for the education and freedom of women in the way that the missionaries had planned to destroy Islam.
He writes in his memoirs: “He met a young girl in France and became friends, and a deep and pure emotional connection emerged between them. He says that that girl accompanied him in meeting French families and French meetings and parties, and because of her company, the gates of houses, meetings and parties were opened to him and he was welcomed. The incident of Qasim Amin’s meeting with that girl has to be pondered whether the girl’s acquaintance with Qasim Amin was accidental or pre-planned.”
Now, whatever it is, the important thing is that after returning from France, Qasim Amin called for the freedom of women and the non-veiling of women. The same invitation that Rafa Tahtawi made after returning from France, and Rafa’s invitation resulted after half a century and the people did not attack Qasim Amin as they had done to Rafa, and Qasim Amin’s invitation did not suffocate like Rafa’s invitation.
Again, it was not easy for Qasim Amin, after the publication of the book Tahreer al-Muraat (freedom of woman), many people evoked their jealousy and narrowed the field for him, as a result of which Qasim Amin became withdrawn and decided to withdraw from his position. But Saad Zaghloul encouraged him and said: “Continue your way, I support you.”
It was here that Qasim Amin decided to use all his power. In his first book, he claimed that he should be given the same rights that Islam has given to women, and women should not be deprived of their Islamic rights, and the first and most basic right that Islam has allowed is education for women. But in the second book, he did not mention Islam at all and he directly said that the Egyptian woman should have full freedom like their other French sisters in order to progress and with their progress, the society will also progress, and it reached a point where it directly led to The Western method used to invite and said: “I do not see any obstacle to follow the path that Europe has taken for years, and he said that this freedom of women caused Europeans to take the steps of progress one after the other.”
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