Zainab al-Ghazali

Hassan al-Banna, the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood, invited al-Ghazali to merge her organisation with his, an invitation she refused as she wished to retain autonomy. However, she did eventually take an oath of personal loyalty to al-Banna. (Mahmood 2005: 68) The fact that her organisation was not formally affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood was to prove useful after the Ikhwan was banned, as for a time al-Ghazali was able to continue to distribute their literature and host their meetings in her home.

She describes her prison experience, which included torture, in a book entitled Ayyām min ḥayātī, published in English as Days from My Life by Hindustan Publications in 1989 and as Return of the Pharaoh by the Islamic Foundation (UK) in 1994. The "Pharaoh" referred to is President Nasser. Al-Ghazali depicts herself as enduring torture with strength beyond that of most men, and she attests to both miracles and visions that strengthened her and enabled her to survive. The Philosopher Sayed Hassan Akhlaq published an essay review about the book along with some critical points.

In justifying her own exceptionality to her stated belief in a woman's rightful role, al-Ghazali described her own childlessness as a "blessing" that would not usually be seen as such, because it freed her to participate in public life. (Hoffman 1988). Her second husband died while she was in prison, having divorced her after government threats to confiscate his property. Al-Ghazali's family were angered at this perceived disloyalty, but al-Ghazali herself remained loyal to him, writing in her memoir that she asked for his photograph to be reinstated in their home when told that it had been removed.

After her release from prison, al-Ghazali resumed teaching. In the period 1976–1978, she published articles in Al Dawa which was restarted by the Muslim Brotherhood in 1976. She was editor of a women's and children's section in Al Dawa, in which she encouraged women to become educated, but to be obedient to their husbands and stay at home while rearing their children. She wrote a book based on her experience in jail.

Zaynab al-Ghazali was also a writer, contributing regularly to major Islamic journals and magazines on Islamic and women's issues. Although the Islamic movement throughout the Muslim world today has attracted a large number of young women, especially since the 1970s, Zaynab al-Ghazali stands out thus far as the only woman to distinguish herself as one of its major leaders.

Her father was educated at al-Azhar University, an independent religious teacher and cotton merchant. He encouraged her to become an Islamic leader citing the example of Nusayba bint Ka'b al-Muzaniyya, a woman who fought alongside Prophet Muhammad in the Battle of Uhud. For a short time during her teens, she joined the Egyptian Feminist Union only to conclude that "Islam gave women rights in the family granted by no other society. At the age of eighteen, she founded the Jama'at al-Sayyidat al-Muslimat (Muslim Women's Association), which she claimed had a membership of three million throughout the country by the time it was dissolved by government order in 1964.

After the assassination of Hassan al-Banna in 1949, al-Ghazali was instrumental in regrouping the Muslim Brotherhood in the early 1960s. Imprisoned for her activities in 1965, she was sentenced to twenty-five years of hard labor but was released under Anwar Sadat's Presidency in 1971.

Zaynab al-Ghazali (Arabic: زينب الغزالي; 2 January 1917 – 3 August 2005) was an Egyptian Muslim activist. She was the founder of the Muslim Women's Association (Jamaa'at al-Sayyidaat al-Muslimaat).