User:AMM Pittsburgh/Mary Ajamy

Mary Ajamy
Born	1888 Damascus, Syria
Died	25 December 1965
Nationality	Syrian
Occupation	journalist

Mary Ajami (1888-1965) was a Syrian journalist who launched one of the first women's magazines in the Middle East called al-'Arus (the Bride).

Biography

Karoline was born in 1888 and raised in Damascus, Syria in a Greek Orthodox family. She studied nursing at the American University of Beirut in Lebanon and graduated in 1906. Even while she was a student at AUB, she began teaching as a visiting teacher in Zahle. After graduation, in 1908, she began teaching in Port Said, Egypt. The following year she moved to a school in Alexandria before returning to her native Damascus to teach English to students attending the Russian military school there.

Journalist

Ajami began freelance writing about social and political topics for Muhammad Kurd Ali's weekly newspaper al-Muqtabas, and in 1910 began her own journal al-'Arus (the Bride), which was the first Syrian publication to defend women's rights. As the editor-in-chief, she was able to employ a few educated girls to serve on its editorial board, although she had the young students sign their journalist contributions under an assumed name for their protection from harassment in Syria's male-dominated society. Ajami's first editorial in the new periodical was a declaration, "a manifesto for Syria's emerging feminist movement, dedicating her work...

"To those who believe that in the spirit of women in the strength to kill the germs of corruption, and that in her hand is the weapon to rend the gloom of opposition, and in her mouth the solace to lighten human misery."

She personally raised the necessary funds to support the journal, which soon became recognized as "one of the highest quality periodicals in the Arab world." While the journal was a rousing success among the country's female educated elite, it was scorned by conservative Muslim readers who condemned its messages and sought to abolish it.

During World War I, the journal suspended its publication and Ajami wrote editorials for the Egyptian newspaper al-Ahrar (Free Patriots), and al-Islah (Reform), an Arabic newspaper based in Buenos Aries, Argentina.

She was fiercely opposed to the Ottoman Empire, especially after 1915 when authorities in Beirut, Lebanon, executed Ajami's fiancé and al-Arus correspondent for criticizing the military regime of Sultan Mohammed Rashad V.

In 1919, she officially restarted publication al-Arus, but not without controversy. In 1920, religious leaders demanded that Ajami be brought to trial for promoting heresy by publishing a story supporting civil marriage.

Suffrage campaigner

In 1920, after the Ottoman Empire collapsed,

Selected publications

• Al-Majdaliyya al-Hasna' (the Beautiful Magdelene) (1913)
• Mukhtarat min al-Sh'r (Selected Poems) (1944)