Doria Shafik

“Doria Shafik - In loving Memory @Slideshare.net.”

“"Doria Shafik 1908-1975 Sister-hood a digital magazine providing Muslim women with a platform to speak (August 9, 2016)”

“Doria Shafik A Life Dedicated to Egyptian Women. In Memory of Doria Shafik. Official Site.”

“Doria Shafik was educated within two cultures and thus could visualize the broader context of her historical situation. She was a nonconformist who could "break out..."...”

“...in opposition to the rising tide of religious conservatism as well as the new revolutionary ethos that after 1952 dominated the politics of the country. Caught between the images of her own creation ("The New Woman" and "The Daughter of the Nile").”

“I broached the idea to her two daughters... to undertake a biographical study of their mother. Their response... enthusiastic and encouraging. ...[T]hanks to their trust... Shafik's personal memoirs and unpublished papers have been generously shared, profound and painful memories have been re-lived, and pathways of understanding have been established.”

“Doria listened to and depended upon that inner realm of memory and consciousness, her muse of interior music, her beloved companion through whose consolation she escaped on her flight into the infinite.”

“[T]his interplay between solitude, alienation, and creativity... ran through her life and work and... brought her into continual conflict with her family and society. Although her life is an expression of one woman's unique experience... her metaphors reach beyond the borders of Egypt to remind us of other women who... challenged the forces that constrained... autonomy and freedom in an unswerving "courage to be."”

“Although Shafik was silenced and... secluded from public life from 1957 until her death in 1975, her image lingers on. Every so often, the... Egyptian press mentions the Bint al-Nil Union or reprints her photograph as a nostalgic reminder... Her name can still evoke strong reactions...”

“[S]he openly challenged every social, cultural, and legal barrier that she viewed as inimical and oppressive to the full equality of the women in her society, thereby contributing more directly than had the reformers of an earlier generation to the construction of an Egyptian feminist discourse surrounding women's rights and Islam. ...Dora Shafik attempted to shape a new consciousness... on several fronts: first, through writing; second, through developing a feminist organization and political party; and finally, through a strategy of direct, militant confrontation.”

“Doria Shafik was a woman who wanted "to experience it all," to be a public heroine in a society that defined and circumscribed women primarily in terms of helper, supporter, and moral guide to the family in the domestic sphere. She derived strength, importance, dignity, and self-respect from her own exploits in pursuit of freedom.”

“Doria Shafik had been a traitor to the Revolution and did not merit having a biography written.”

“[T]here is a sort of immanent justice, facilitating certain things in compensation for others.”

“For the rule of Great Nature makes us understand... that we can have nothing without paying the price, and that the higher the goal, the higher must be the price.”

“[M]y departure is not running away or an escape but a quest—a conquest, an acquisition of knowledge! I would leave again for Paris! I would have the highest degree in the world. I would arm myself to the teeth, with all the powerful weapons of knowledge! Then and only then would I be able to find the way to freedom.”

“Poetry!My great comfort...WhenAs a shipwrecked woman on the High SeasDesparing...Overwhelmed by the Tempest...I do not know fromWhich illumened HeavensYou appeared...Love...BeautyI took refugeIn your tendernessNo longer aFlotsam on the Sea.”

“Nothing really worthwhile can be accomplished without suffering.”

“To Want and To Dare! Never hesitate to act when the feeling of injustice revolts us. To give one's measure with all good faith, the rest will follow as a logical consequence.”

“[N]early all of the difficulties facing Egyptian women centered around polygamy and hasty divorce by men without protection for women and children.”

“To catch the imponderable thread connecting my... existence to my... past, as well as to my country's history and civilization. The Egypt I knew... was... awakening from a thousand years' sleep, becoming conscious of its long sufferings—that it had rights! And I learned in my... childhood that the Will of woman can supersede the law.”