Zahra Alawi

Yemeni feminist pioneer who established clandestine girls' schools under Islamic fundamentalist regimes

In 1970s North Yemen, Zahra Alawi (1939-2005) secretly educated over 3,000 girls using underground quranic study groups when female literacy was 2%. Her innovative "Needlework Literacy" program disguised alphabet lessons as embroidery patterns, evading Zaidi Imamate's religious police.

Alawi's memoir 'Diaries of an Invisible Woman' documents smuggling textbooks in flour sacks. She established Yemen's first women's cooperative in 1981, enabling economic independence through artisanal honey production. Her 1993 fatwa permitting female political participation laid groundwork for Yemen's 2003 suffrage law.

Despite assassination attempts, Alawi's Mobile Desert Schools educated Bedouin girls until her death. The UNESCO-Zahra Alawi Prize now honors educators in conflict zones, preserving her radical legacy of resistance through knowledge.