Zakiyya Uryan

Syrian educator who pioneered women's education in the Levant region during the Ottoman Empire's final decades

Zakiyya Uryan (1890-1972) revolutionized education in Syria by establishing the Al-Farabi College for girls in Damascus in 1919, the first institution of its kind in the region offering science and mathematics courses. Her bilingual (Arabic-French) curriculum prepared over 1,200 students for university education before Syrian independence. Uryan's teacher training programs created a generation of female educators who expanded literacy rates from 7% to 28% among rural women by 1940. She developed the Uryan Method, a pedagogical system still used in MENA countries, emphasizing critical thinking and civic responsibility. During the French Mandate, she led nationalist education campaigns that preserved Arabic language instruction despite colonial pressures. Her memoir 《My Journey Through Education》 remains a key text in Middle Eastern women's studies. Uryan's advocacy for coeducational schools laid groundwork for Syria's 1967 compulsory education law.