Mary Ajami and Syria’s First Women’s Magazine al-‘Arūs

Abstract

Mary Ajamī is considered the pioneer of the feminist movement in modern Syria. The founding role she played in Syria’s cultural and literary life in the early 1900s attracted the attention of both the press and literary circles.Mary Ajamī who lived during the period when Syria was under Ottoman rule, as well as during the French and British occupation. The author, who is known for her struggle against all these administrations, will be discussed in this study not in terms of her political aspects and views but in terms of her contributions tothe field of literature. In addition, her magazine al-‘Arūs, which she started to publish in 1910, will be one of the subjects of this study due to its acceptance as the first woman-specific magazine in Syria and the importance of the subjects it covers. This magazine, in which Ajamī published articles on important issues such as women’s freedom, their role in society, and women’s education, also published articles by Jibrān Khalīl Jibrān (d. 1931), Ahmad Shawqī (d. 1932), Hāfiz Ibrāhīm (d. 1932), ez-Zahāwī (d. 1936), Khalil Mutran (d. 1949), Iliyyā Abū Mādī (d. 1957) and Mihāil Nuayme (d. 1988). The literary personality and contributions to the literary world of Ajamī, who has an important place in Syria’s nahda movement and who has attracted the attention of different masses with the reformist ideology she adopted in the political field, will be the focus of this study.

Keywords

• mary ajami
• al-arūs
• woman
• feminism
• syria