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Nadira Zain al-Din, a Lebanese scholar born in 1905, was one of the first Arab women writers of her time to speak out against the degrading practices of her culture. She is not only famous for her criticisms agains the traditional "head to toe veil" worn by Muslim women at the time, but for her outspokenness about the seclusion and discrimination of these women as well. She spent much of her life writing and passionately fighting for the identity and equality of women in the Arab world.

Early Life
Nazira Zain al-Din was the daughter of Shaykh Saeed Zainal Din, the judge in Lebanon's High Court of Appeals and an intellectual scholar of the Islamic religion. Due to his background in the intellectual world, her father supported her educational endeavors and sent her to a foreign school in Lebanon. In addition to her primary education, al-Din's father made sure she was also well educated in Islamic religion. She was well versed in the Quran and was able to learn from various Islamic scholars, many of whom were friends of her father. By the time she was a young woman, Nadira Zain al-Din was extremely literate, especially on the subject of Islamic religion.

Writing
Nazira Zain al-Din wrote her first book Unveiling and Veiling in 1928 at the young age of 20. The book touched on the extremely controversial subject regarding the head-to-toe veiling of women during the early 20th century. It is thought that she wrote this in response to the 1927 Syrian law that forbid women to be out in public unveiled. Due to her extensive history of reading and interpreting Islamic law, al-Din was able to use the Quran and Hadith to back up her argument on this subject. In Unveiling and Veiling, she concluded that the rigid custom of veiling women was a "gender-biased interpretation of the scriptural text that imposed seclusion on women," not a component of Islamic law.

Despite her use of evidence in these holy texts, this book caused a great deal of uproar among the clerical Islam community. It was banned by many islamic clergy leaders, and members of the muslim community were urged to neither buy nor sell this book. Al-Din was also accused of plagiarism and atheism by many of these clerics. Despite many sources of opposition, Al-Din was actually supported by a few influential muslim groups, one of them being the well-known Egyptian Women's magazine. This group supported Al-Din's claims regarding women's rights and published parts of her first book in many languages. She wrote her second book, The Young Woman and the Shaikhs later that year. It is seen as a collection of responses to the criticism and praise that she received from the Muslim community regarding Unveiling and Veiling.

Legacy and Impact
Al-Din's works were considered a necessary response to the veiling of Middle Eastern women during this time. In her home of Damascus and in many other parts of the Middle East, women were not allowed to leave the house without their face covered. This occurred at a time before women themselves reclaimed the right to wear the veil as a mean of their personal expression of faith. During the 1920's, this "head-to-toe" covering was seen as a source of oppression and seclusion, "stemming from the logic of male ownership and female objectification". Al-Din's response to this societal issue left a remarkable impact on the muslim community. She was one of the first women to use the Quran to defend notions that were thought to have originated from it. Both of her works questioned the validity of the misogynistic interpretations of both the Quran and the Hadith. Rather than relying on these interpretations, she urged members of the Muslim community to use individual reason and judgement to distinguish between what is regarded as moral, and what is not. Her willingness to express this and other opinions regarding the rights of women make her one of the most influential Arab women writers and one of the most outspoken Arab feminists of her time.

Works

 * Unveiling and Veiling: Lectures and Views on the Liberation of the Women and Social renewal in the Arab World (Al-Sufur wal hijab) 1928
 * The Young Woman and the Shaikhs (Al-Fatah wa al-Shuyukh) 1928