It was not the fate one might expect of the young woman whose name translates as beautiful fragrant tree. Zainab Hussain Ahmed Mahdi, from the popular Cairo neighborhood Rawdh al-Faraj, had studied Arabic Literature at the Faculty of Arabic and Islamic studies at Al-Azhar University.
It was not the fate one might expect of the young woman whose name translates as beautiful fragrant tree. Zainab Hussain Ahmed Mahdi, from the popular Cairo neighborhood Rawdh al-Faraj, had studied Arabic Literature at the Faculty of Arabic and Islamic studies at Al-Azhar University.
Like many young women of her generation, Zainab held on tightly to the blazing fire of the revolution, whose winds blew contrary to her wishes. Soon after the outbreak of the January 2011 revolution that toppled despot ruler Hosni Mubarak, Zainab had broken away from the ranks of the Muslim Brotherhood, and joined the Strong Egypt party which was founded by Abdel Moneim Aboul Fotouh, a former Brotherhood leader who left the group after the revolution.
Zainab was a fierce opponent of the deposed President Morsi after the loss of her party in the presidential elections. She also participated in Rabia al-Adawiya sit-in motivated by the good intentions of ending the bloodshed and to avoid being harassed after she took off her hijab.
Yet despite her devotion to changing the tumultuous society around her, Zainab eventually gave up. On her Facebook page her last post read:
“I am tired and exhausted for no avail. They are all bastards! We were plowing into the sea. There is no law that establishes justice. We do what we can to achieve justice and righteousness so that we do not spit on our faces when we look at ourselves in the mirror. There is no justice; I am positive about that. We should expect no victory on the horizon, but we laugh at ourselves to allow life to continue.”
Shortly thereafter, Zainab was found hanging from a ceiling fan in her family’s home.
Clues left on social media
On Zainab’s Sound Cloud, there was an audiotape in which Zainab referred to female circumcision as a crime, which she said destroyed her relationship with her body at an early age.
Shortly before she took her own life, Zainab also stopped wearing her hijab. The 20-year-old had been an advocate for women’s rights and once said about women in the Muslim Brotherhood: “Women are treated as a marginalized object; the same inadequate outlook they receive in our societies as second class citizens because Shura according to the group is limited to men. They alone plan our destiny. Her only right is to teach the Holy Quran and educate young girls.”
Zainab appeared in two videos: the first was posted on YouTube showing her sitting in Islamic dress, performing a presentation after receiving a training session as an observer under the slogan of ‘Protect Your Voice’ explaining what she believes possible to choose a president democratically in the first round of the presidential elections in June 2012 before Morsi’s arrival to power.
In a soft voice, she advised the voters to exercise their voting right inside the balloting centers until midnight where they could cast their votes for their candidates provided they got there before 7:00 PM, according to the law regulating the course of the electoral process.
In the second video, Zainab appeared in the courtyard of Sultan Hassan mosque explaining the concept of the religious state and how this theocratic rule grew up in the Middle Ages in Europe when the church controlled state affairs. The timing of the video was after the Guidance Office took control of the government apparatuses and its repressive practices against the revolution activists like any other counter-revolution elements.
Among her Facebook ‘likes’ was a song by Um Kolthoum entitled ‘All the Love’ and more specifically the part that reads ‘I walked down my life’s path before you on a long night.’
