Aicha Abderahman (also spelt Aisha Abd al-Rahman) 1913 - 1998
Aishah Abd al-Rahman (pseudonym: Bint al-Shati), an Egyptian writer and professor of literature, was born in 1913 in the town of Damietta (Dumyat) in northern Egypt. Her father taught at the Dumyat Religious Institute, while her mother was illiterate. It was her mother, however, who enrolled Aisha in school at age ten during a prolonged absence of her father and, despite his objections, sent Aisha to al-Mansurah to continue her education.
Later, Aisha Abd al-Rahman attended the Cairo University and graduated in 1939 with a degree in Arabic, which she followed with an M.A. degree in 1941. In 1942, Abd al-Rahman accepted a position with the Egyptian Ministry of Education as an Inspector for teaching of Arabic literature. After receiving her Ph.D. degree with distinction she was appointed Professor of Arabic Literature at the University College for Women of the Ain Shams University.
In addition to teaching, she wrote fiction as well as biographies of early Muslim women, including the mother, wives, and daughters of the Prophet Muhammad, but is best known for her literary criticism. She was the second modern woman to undertake Qur'anic exegesis. She did not consider herself to be a feminist, but her works reflect the belief that female authors are more capable of analyzing the life stories of women than male authors.
She was married to Sheik Amin el-Khouli, her teacher at Cairo University during her undergraduate years. She died of a heart attack following a stroke in Cairo. She donated all her library to research purposes, and in 1985 a statue was built in her honor in Cairo.
A selection of her works are:
The Egyptian Countryside (1936)
The Problem of the Peasant (1938)
Secret of the Beach and Master of the Estate: The Story of a Sinful Woman (1942)
New Values in Arabic Literature (1961)
Contemporary Arab Women Poets (1963).
