IRAQI JEWISH WRITERS

Maryam al-Mulla as an Iraqi-Jewish Feminist Activist

BY REUVEN SNIR

Since the late nineteenth century, intellectuals throughout the Arab world struggled for women’s rights. Prominent among them were the Egyptian Qasim Amin (1863-1908), whose books Tahrir al-Mar’a (The Liberation of Woman) (1899) and alMar’a al-Jadida (The New Woman) (1901) were significant landmarks in that struggle. In 1923, his compatriot Huda Sha‘rawi (1879-1947) established al-Ittihad al-Nisa’i al-Misri (The Egyptian Feminist Union). In Lebanon, Nazira Zayn al-Din (1908-1976) pub-

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