Zainab al-Ghazali

Zainab Ghazali al-Jubaili (1917-2005) was born in Egypt. At the age of twenty she formed a major women’s charitable organisation which rendered valuable service to the poor, orphans, and underprivileged. Although she had acquaintance with Hasan al-Banna, the founder of Ikhwan, since the late 1930s, and actively participated in many Islamic programmes, she formally joined them in 1948.

After the assassination of Hasan al-Banna in 1949, she played a major role in the reorganisation of the group. She was arrested in 1965 for an alleged conspiracy to kill Jamal Abd al-Nasir and overthrow his government. She was released in 1971 during Anwar Sadat’s presidency. In addition to being very active in da’wah work, Zainab al-Ghazali has been a prolific writer, contributing regularly to major Islamic journals and periodicals. Her latest book is a two-volume study on the tafsir of the Quran.