Hind Nawfal

Hind Nawfal
Born	Hind Nawfal 1860 Syria
Notable works	Al Fatat magazine
Spouse	Habib Dabbana
Relatives	Maryam Nawfal (née al-Nahhas) (mother), Nasim Nawfal (father), Sarah (sister)

Hind Nawfal (1860-1920) was a Syrian journalist. She was the first woman in the Arab world to publish a journal concerning only women's issues.

Hind Nawfal was born in 1860, in coastal Syria. Her mother, Maryam al-Nahhas (1859-1888) was raised during the civil unrest and economic depression in Beirut before marrying Nawfal’s father, Nasim when she was 16 and he was 10 years her senior. Nasim Nawfal was from a Greek Orthodox Tripolian family and raised Hind as a Christian.

The family moved to escape the Ottoman censorship in Syria and settled in Alexandria in the 1870s, where Hind attended a covenant school. During the reign of Khedive Isma'il Pasha, Egypt had abandoned its monopoly on publishing and from the time of the British occupation of Egypt in 1882 had also limited its censorship on the press. As the upper and middle class began to invest in literature, the number of printing presses had increased and thus the circulation of literary material as well.

Hind Nawfal was unique at the time in that she came from a household where both her mother and father were writers. Hind’s mother, Maryam, completed a biographical dictionary, Ma’rid al-Hasna’ fi Tarajim Masharhir al-Nisa’ (The beautiful woman’s exhibition for the biographies of female celebrities), of Eastern and Western women. She dedicated it to Princess Cheshmat Hanim, third wife of Isma’il, who sponsored its publication. Hind’s father and uncle worked as journalists and translators in the Egyptian government. Her father would end up directing the office of Hind’s magazine where her sister, Sarah, would also assist.

Nawfal started her journal, Al Fatat (The Young Woman), on 20 November 1892, at a time when there were a growing number of newspapers and scientific journals in circulation and also an increase in female readership. However, al-Fatah was the “first of its kind under the Eastern sky,” Nawfal said, in that it was a journal written for, by, and about women. Nawfal had intended to “adorn its pages with pearls from the pens of women.”

In her first issue, she outlined her goals for the magazine, which included defending women’s rights, expressing their views and drawing on their responsibility and duties. She subtitled the magazine “scientific, historical, literary, and humorous.” It would not however discuss politics and had “no aim in religious controversies.”

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