Labiba Ahmad

Labiba Ahmad (1870s – 1951) was an Egyptian Islamic activist, philanthropist, traveller and writer. ¹

She was born in Cairo, the daughter of Ahmad 'Abd al-Nabi Bey, a medical doctor; her full name was Labiba Ahmad Abd al-Nabi. She married 'Uthman Pasha Murtada, a judge, and had a son and five daughters. ^{1 2} The sources do not agree on her dates: the English article, following Beth Baron's scholarship, gives her birth only to the 1870s and her death to 1951, while the Arabic article's text gives her birth in 1870 and its infobox gives 1875 and a death on 1 January 1955. The museum records 1870–1951 at year precision, with the conflict flagged in her data record. ^{1 2 3}

A nationalist, she joined Mustafa Kamil's Watani Party and marched in the Ladies' Demonstrations of 1919. After the revolution she did not join the Women's Wafd Central Committee; instead she founded the Society of Egyptian Ladies' Awakening, to promote Islamic nationalism and provide welfare services to the poor, and started its monthly magazine, al-Nahda al-Nisa'iyya (Women's Awakening). ^{1 2}

Unlike many of the new wave of Egyptian feminists, she thought of women's rights in Islamic terms and wished to "create a new Islamic woman", combining feminism with Islamic nationalism and distancing herself from liberal feminist organisations. ¹

In 1933 Hassan al-Banna appointed her the first head of the Muslim Sisters, the women's section of the Muslim Brotherhood, a role she held until 1937. ²

Her documented life's work is Islamic activism, and her associations are recorded above; neither article names a school of Islam for her, and Wikidata gives only generic Islam, so this museum records her faith as unknown. ^{1 2 3}