Jihan al-Mosli

Jihan al-Mosli was a Syrian educator and politician who was born in Damascus in 1908. She lost her mother at the age of three and was raised by her father, who encouraged her education. She attended a local girl's primary school and later a teacher training college, where she obtained a baccalaureate in 1927. She then worked as a teacher and became the headmistress of a secondary school for girls. She also earned a law degree in 1947. She was an activist for women's rights and demanded the right to vote and stand for election. She was a member of the Association of Women's Associations and the Arab Women's Union. She stopped wearing a veil in the 1940s and became a feminist role model. 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. They left the Assembly when Syria seceded from the United Arab Republic in 1961. She never married and died in 1996.