Mary Ajami (Arabic: ماري عجمي) (1888 – December 25, 1965) was a Syrian feminist and pioneering Arabic-language writer who launched the first women's periodical in Western Asia and North Africa called Al Arus (Arabic: the Bride). Biography Ajami was born to a large Greek Orthodox Christian family in 1888 and raised in Damascus, modern-day Syria. Her father was Abdallah al-Ajami, a prominent Damascene landowner, businessman and influential figure of the church, whilst her mother was a woman of Greek descent. She spent her formative years in Damascus, where she received an education from Irish and Russian missionary schools, before studying nursing and graduating from the Syrian Protestant College in Beirut in 1906. Even while she was a student at the Syrian Protestant College, she began teaching as a visiting teacher in Zahlé, Lebanon. After graduation, she began teaching in Port Said, Egypt. The following year she moved to a school in Alexandria, Egypt before returning to her native Damascus to teach English to students attending the Russian military school there. Journalist She was a writer frequently publishing her work under the pseudonym of Layla (her mother's name) for fear of reprisals. Ajami began freelance writing about social and political topics for Muhammad Kurd Ali's weekly newspaper Al Muqtabas and in 1910 began her own periodical Al 'Arus (Araic: the Bride), which was the first Syrian publication to defend women's rights, which ran for 11 years. As the editor-in-chief, she was able to employ a few educated girls to serve on its editorial board, although she had the young women sign their journalist contributions under an assumed name for their protection from harassment in Syria's male-dominated society. Ajami's first editorial in the new periodical was a declaration, "a manifesto for Syria's emerging feminist movement, dedicating her work... "To those who believe that in the spirit of women in the strength to kill the germs of corruption, and that in her hand is the weapon to rend the gloom of opposition, and in her mouth the solace to lighten human misery."She personally raised the necessary funds to support the journal, which soon became recognized as "one of the highest quality periodicals in the Arab world." While the journal was a rousing success among the country's female educated elite, it was scorned by conservative Muslim readers who condemned its messages and sought to abolish it.During World War I, the journal suspended its publication