Syria’s first female general, defying the law as she was photographed in all her military finery without her hijab, perhaps one of the bravest fighters of all. Speaking five languages, creator of the Syrian Red Crescent and sent into exile more times than one could count, Naziq al-Abid, born in Damascus, Ottoman Syria, in 1898, became known as the ‘Joan of Arc of the Arabs’ for a reason. Born into a wealthy Damascene family, Naziq would dedicate her life to suffragist, humanitarian and social reform causes. She was also a courageous and defiant pioneer of Syrian independence. But just how did Naziq go from wealth to fighting on the literal and social battlefields? This is the story of how one person fought back with distinction and valour…
The Arc
Damascus. 1898. Syria struggling under the brutal regime of the Ottoman Empire. Naziq’s family were wealthy and influential. Her father, Mustafa al-Abid, was an aristocrat with administrative duties in Kirk, later an envoy to Mosul. This was a family connected to the ruling Ottoman elite… Ottoman Sultan Abdulhamid II’s advisor, Ahmad Izza al-Abid, was Naziq’s niece. She was well-educated, fluent in several languages, including French and German. She later gained a bachelor of arts degree in architecture from Istanbul’s Women’s College but rather than architecture, upon graduating she felt a different calling in life. Politics sparked a fire within Naziq, and it burned in her forever.
Using a male pseudonym, Naziq, a fair-minded individual, wrote political columns in various magazines criticising the Young Turks coup that had deposed of the Sultan. The Ottoman Empire was becoming militarised and Arabs were facing discrimination, many excluded from senior government offices. Despite her own family’s connections to the Ottoman Empire, Naziq had taken her first stand… and it was against the Ottomans.
She had strong egalitarian views and she didn’t care for consequences. As a young student, she watched on in horror as her Turkish teachers hurled abuse at the Arab students. This didn’t directly affect Naziq as she was from a family of wealthy Kurdish merchants, but she didn’t want to watch, she wanted to help. And so she, even then in her younger days, decided to act. At once, she organised a protest demanding the teachers be fired.
They weren’t. And Naziq was thrown out of that particular school. And then Turkey. Yes, she was deported home to Damascus, all for speaking out against the Turks. This was her first exile and soon, another was to follow…
The Egyptian Revolution
The situation was deteriorating rapidly across the entire Ottoman Empire. They were not nice people and rebellions were mounting. Revolutions and coups became the order of the day and for family’s like Naziq’s, they were caught in the middle. The difference here was that Naziq would not stand for it.
Naziq and her family were exiled, for a second time, this time to Egypt following the CUP revolution of 1908 but this did not deter Naziq. In 1914, back in Damascus, she established an advocacy group for women’s rights, but they also fought for Syrian independence from the Ottoman Empire. And so, once more, Naziq was exiled along with her family. She was a troublemaker to the authorities and little more.
Cairo is where Naziq and her family stayed until 1918. It was then the Ottoman Empire collapsed. But Naziq had built something remarkable. Her advocacy groups highlighted the plight of women’s issues and even when she was in exile, she managed to build a network of activist women. Those in charge suspected the group were linked the Syrian nationalist movements and outlawed the group. Yet Naziq carried on.
She was facing serious rebellion from the government, regardless of who was in charge. Women in the Middle East had few rights but by the time Naziq had returned to Damascus, war still raged: both from the fallout from the Ottoman Empire’s collapse and the First World War, which had begun. The world was burning yet change for those suffering persecution burned brightest.
Naziq leapt back into politics, once more in Damascus demanding, publicly, equal rights. This, the very person who had faced exile on many occasions, refusing to back down. This was tremendously brave from a woman who knew her actions could have dire consequences.
Naziq spoke publicly and she wrote newspaper articles, all demanding equality and suffrage for women. She soon became known across Syria as one of its most vocal activists. She rode from town to town on horseback to speak and she loved to defy convention. She was the only woman known in the country at the time to wear trousers and boots, not the traditional dress for women back then. Her cousin said of her:
[She was] very liberal with a strong character. She was a true rebel.
The Light of Syria
There were many wars being fought in 1918, all for different causes, all across the world. It was humanity’s darkest hour. Syria was now free of the Ottoman Empire but Syrians were left with many problems and many questions. Just what did the future hold for them? For Naziq, the right to vote for women was the most important issue but make no bones about it, she was across equality for all people.
None of this was popular. What Naziq was doing may be unconventional for 1919 in the west, but in the Middle East, it was deadly. The government officials hated her and wanted to shut her up, however they could. When Naziq spoke publicly she knew she had a target on her back. She was unpopular for the authorities but for the Syrian people? She was their hero. One Syrian government official said of her at the time:
God created her with a half a mind, how can we give her the right of political decision-making?
Didn’t shut her up, no, she kept going. In 1919, she founded Nur al-Fayha’ or The Light of Damascus, a society, magazine and, in 1922, a school that offered English and sewing courses for young Syrian girls left orphaned by war. Nur al-Fayha’ was Damascus’s first women’s organisation and one day, Naziq led a delegation of Syrian women to an American commission to represent Syria’s response to the idea of a French Mandate. Syria was free of the Ottomans, but now the French wanted to take control…
Naziq met with President Woodrow Wilson and in a gesture to mark a secular and liberal Syria, she removed her hijab. To say the Syrian authorities, who were already pissed off by her, were even more pissed off by her now she was not wearing her hijab is something of a colossal understatement.
Naziq spoke to American diplomats against French rule, wanting an independent Syria. It was not successful. However, her voice had been heard in other regards. In 1919, the Syrian Parliament tried to pass a law granting women the right to vote, one year before America granted women the right to vote. It faced stiff opposition and it was defeated, but was Naziq part of that shifting attitude in the nation? Undoubtedly. She had started a revolution.
Women would not receive universal suffrage in Syria until 1953, but soon, Naziq would face a rather different battle. The French were coming. And Syrians would fight back. It would plunge the country into war and, for a brief time, Naziq would have to put her fight for equality on the back foot. Why?
She wanted to fight…
The Red Star
As war loomed, Naziq founded the Red Star Association, which became the Red Crescent Society. Prince Faysal awarded Naziq an honorary title of the Syrian Army and she led her Red Star nurses in the Syrian Army’s battle against the French forces during the Battle of Maysalun in the July of 1920. Many would die but Naziq, a fighter for equal rights, was now on an actual battlefield trying to care for the wounded. But the French were far more powerful. The Syrian resistance stood no chance. You have to feel for the Syrians. The Ottoman Empire was brutal and only a few years after being freed, the French were about to take the nation by force.
The Syrian Army fought back as best as they could, but the Syrian King, devastated by the loss and the aggression, ruler of a nation that was only four months old, was forced to surrender. The French wanted to kill every single Syrian. It could have been genocide. The King wanted to save his people. Surrendering was the only way to avoid bloodshed.
But not everyone agreed. The King’s Minister of Defence scraped together whatever weapons he could find and found some volunteers. It was the last stand. Acting alone, the Minister and his ragtag army decided to go out all guns blazing. Against 9,000 French troops, it was a suicide mission. And you know what?
Naziq was one of them.
Charge!
She donned her military uniform. Removed her hijab. Slung a rifle over her shoulder. And went to war. Her image was in every newspaper. Her country was proud of her. She was a national icon, a hero of the Syrians. The newspapers gave her a title, too. And it was a terrifying one. Naziq became known as:
The Sword of Damascus.
Many conservatives were not happy. Some accused her of blasphemy, not just for removing her hijab but for going to war, considered by the conservatives as ‘a man’s duty’, not a woman’s duty. We’re not entirely sure what Naziq did, but we know she fought as a soldier, on the battlefield, in the war against the French. She had gone from revolutionary campaigner for women’s rights to fighting on the battlefield. Yet the resistance stood no chance. They were vastly outnumbered but one must commend their bravery. Naziq fought with valour. As did all her Syrian sisters and brothers. But they were conquered.
The Minister of Defence fought alongside Naziq and when he was hit, bleeding out, she tried to save his life. Not only was she a solider on the battlefield, the image of a Syrian woman fighting for her country without her hijab to signify a new, Syrian woman, an image that became iconic, she was still a medic. It was in vain. The resistance fell and the Minister died. The King was overthrown and, yet again, Naziq was forced to flee.
She was in exile once more, this time in Istanbul. For her efforts, she was promoted to the honorary rank of General in the Syrian Army, the first woman to attain such a title. She was Syria’s Joan of Arc. She had fought and she had done her best.
But alas, it was never going to be enough…
The Darkness of Damascus
In 1921, Naziq was granted amnesty by the French government and once more, she returned to Syria. On one condition: avoid politics. She immediately founded the Light of Damascus School so that didn’t quite work out for the French invaders. They were not pleased. They argued that she was taking work away from French, and therefore somehow ‘superior’, humanitarian agencies and programs. The French threatened to arrest Naziq so, once more, she had to flee Syria for Jordan. Are you keeping track of how many times she’s been exiled? I’ve lost track…
When Naziq was allowed to return, once more on the condition that she behaved herself, predictably, she didn’t. Once back in Syria, she decided to spend her time smuggling food and munitions to anti-French rebels, making this hero a bloody legend. She also spent her time caring for the wounded and she founded another women’s society. She was an outlaw. And she had thrown herself into that world completely.
Once again in exile, now in Lebanon technically fleeing arrest after the French issued an arrest warrant for her, she kept herself busy. She founded the Syrian Red Star in 1921 and upon her return to Syria in 1922, she established the Syrian Red Crescent, modelled on the Red Cross. She became its President. Well, you would…
It was during her time in Lebanon when Naziq met and married Muhammad Jamil Bayhum, a politician and intellectual. In Syria, Naziq founded the Women’s Union along with Adila Bayhum and Labiba Thabet in 1924 but only one year later, she returned to military life.
This was the Syrian Revolt.
The Revolt
Naziq joined up with the insurgents of the Ghuta orchards, living life as an outlaw, helping to smuggle supplies and weaponry. And, of course, tending to the wounded. She carried on her campaigning and founded the Women’s Awakening Society in 1925. Like many of her other organisations, the aim of this was to train displaced and widowed Syrian women in various crafts. But Naziq’s work with the latest revolution once more put a target on her back. She was a problem for the French. A repeated problem. And she liked being a problem. Being a nuisance is what she did best. And it often came with frightful consequences.
In 1927, once more, a warrant was issued for Naziq’s arrest and once more, she had to flee. She was in exile again but during this exile, she supported women’s economic and worker’s rights, including the right to maternity leave. Even more remarkable, she founded the Association for the Working Women in Lebanon and financed the construction of a hospital. Never mind being Syria’s Joan of Arc. Naziq was Superwoman.
In 1928, she was pardoned, again, returning to Syria on the condition she behaved herself. Nope. Ha. She had been inspired by Syrian nationalism to campaign for political representation to change women’s social roles as subordinates, establish direct contact with the state over their right to vote and, of course, share the fight for independence.
She founded Niqâbat al-Mar’a al-‘Amila or The Working Women’s Society in 1933, working on the issues that affected all Syrian women. Throughout the 1930s and 1940s, she remained a potent political activist, even managing to stop being exiled. She continued to find a voice for the voiceless until her death. In 1948, for example, during the Arab-Israeli War, she established an organisation to assist Palestinian refugees, her main focus from then on. Remarkably, considering how often she had to flee, she died in Syria. And this was a free Syria.
In 1946, independence was granted when the British took the nation from the French. And in 1953, women received the right to vote. These were Naziq’s two fondest hopes for her nation and she lived to see them both. It had even become acceptable for women to remove their hijabs, just as Naziq had done. By 1960, women were being elected to parliament. This was the era of great strides toward equality all in no small part thanks to Naziq al-Abid. A name not known outside of Syria but a legend all the same.
She traded luxury and wealth for a life of rebellion and aid, fighting injustices until her death in 1959 in Damascus at the age of 72. She died a Syrian icon for nationalism and feminism, but also, as a hugely inspirational figure to all of humanity…
The Legacy
What Naziq did for Syria and the fight for freedom is inspirational, but she is more than the monikers she was given, The Joan of Arc of the Arabs and The Sword of Damascus. The first woman to earn rank in the Syrian Army, a dedicated medic and fighter for independence and equality, founder of the Red Star Society, a precursor of the International Red Cross, and she was a revolutionary in many senses of the word. She was a pioneer for independence but also a better way of life, a life without war or violence, a world of peace.
If Naziq was British or American, she would be a household name. And that’s what she deserves to be. She saw a world without conflict regardless of nationality or religion, she saw a world all hope for. To charge the French army is indicative of her courage, but it was her guile, her intelligence and her soul that inspired a nation and should inspire the world.
Naziq al-Abid is a legend for what she stood for and it’s a message as relevant now as it was when she was alive…
But most people supported me. I was off to battle, not a cabaret!
– Naziq (on her decision to remove her hijab).
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Image: 1) Naziq al-Abid. Image Credit: https://wikivisually.com/wiki/Women_in_Syria
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