On a press visit to Lebanon, Miss Amani Farid, editor at Dar al-Hilal in Cairo, called at the editorial office of The Woman's Voice to write a sketch of the women's movement in Lebanon. She kindly offered a word befitting the memory of Huda Shaarawi, in response to the editor-in-chief's request.
Many are those who know Huda Shaarawi as a leader and a woman reformer. She made great efforts in the revolution of 1919, when she went out with the daughters of her sex to free Egypt from the yoke of the English colonizers — then she founded the Women's Union, which was the first party to demand the emancipation of woman and the granting of her political rights. She made successful rounds in all manner of women's social affairs: she founded a school for the education of girls, a workshop for poor women, and a hospital for the care of woman and child.. But few are those who know Huda Shaarawi the human being... She was delicate of feeling, deeply compassionate toward the poor, an encourager and champion of every artistic and literary movement in Egypt and the other lands of Arabism. From her own money she granted monthly allowances to families upon whom fortune had turned its back, and she sent abroad missions of young people in whom she sensed genius and whom she found unable to bear the costs of their education..
And Huda was, besides all this, an artist by nature and a woman of letters by inclination; her salon overflowed every Tuesday with a bouquet of the men of literature and art.. I remember going to see her one Tuesday at her house — it was in the last days of her life — and among her visitors was the great poet Khalil Mutran,
who fell to complaining of old age and of a passing illness that had come over him; and the eyes of the great leader Huda Shaarawi filled with tears as she listened to the great poet's sufferings...
Then a few months passed, after which Khalil Mutran died; Huda wept for him and arranged his memorial service at the Women's Union. Illness was not long in descending upon her in turn; it granted her no respite of days, and she departed this life..
And the people grieved at the death of Huda Shaarawi, for she was a bold, striving, patient lady, who was able to bring the daughters of her sex out of the darkness of ignorance and servitude into the light of learning and liberation.. No — Huda Shaarawi has not died; her fragrant memory still fills every quarter and every ear, and her noble works in the service of learning and in laboring for the uplift of human society still endure, telling of Huda the leader, the reformer, the human being, the immortal.
Talk of the Heart