Jihan al-Mosli explained

Office1:Member of the National Assembly
Term1:1960–1961
Birth Date:1908
Birth Place:Damascus, Ottoman Empire
Death Date:1996

Jihan al-Mosli (Arabic: جهان الموصلي, 1908–1996) was a Syrian educator and politician. In 1960, she and Widad Haroun were appointed to the National Assembly of the United Arab Republic, becoming the first Syrian women to enter parliament.[1]

Biography

Al-Mosli was born in Damascus in 1908 to Salih Mosli and Fatima al-Sidawi.[2] Her mother died when she was three years old, after which she was raised by her father.[2] Having demonstrated she could memorise passages from the Quran, she was sent to a local girl's primary school. She later attended teacher training college and obtained a baccalaureate in 1927, after which she studied at a higher teacher college.[2] She subsequently worked as a teacher and became headmistress of a secondary school for girls. In 1944 she became secretary of the Association of Women's Associations. Three years later she earned a law degree.

She stopped wearing a veil in the 1940s,[2] and became an activist for women's rights, demanding the right to vote and stand for election. After the Arab Women's Union moved to Damascus, she became a member of its executive office.[2] Having been involved in politics since the 1920s, when she joined a demonstration to support the National Bloc prior to the 1928 elections,[2] in July 1960 al-Mosli was appointed to the National Assembly of the United Arab Republic alongside Haroun.[3] They left the Assembly when Syria seceded from the United Arab Republic in September the following year.[3]

She never married,[2] and died in 1996.[3]

Notes and References

  1. https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1529&context=wmjowl Women and the People’s Assembly In The Syrian Arab Republic
  2. Esther Meininghaus (2016) Creating Consent in Ba‘thist Syria: Women and Welfare in a Totalitarian State pp53–66
  3. http://www.parliament.gov.sy/arabic/index.php?node=55108&nid=19617& برلمانيات سوريات... جهان موصلي بقلم د. نورا أريسيان