By Noha Salama
Translated from Arabic by Imad Alayoubi

25/02/2003

“The spokesperson for the Egyptian Embassy in Washington, D.C.  reported today that Ms. Samira Moussa, an Egyptian student who has recently completed her studies at the American Oakridge University in Tennessee, has been killed in a car accident.”

This is the statement that appeared on the last page of the Aug. 19, 1952 issue of Al Misri newspaper announcing the death of Samira Moussa PhD, a nuclear scientist from the village of Sinbu Al-Kubra. Dubbed the Marie Curie of the East, Samira was the first female lecturer at the Faculty of Science, Fuad I University (now known as Cairo University).

Who was this woman who had traditional Egyptian features? Why is her death shrouded in mystery and suspicion? Who is going to pick up from where Samira left off? Why do we not pay tribute to such an outstanding scientist? Unfortunately, I cannot promise readers that I will be able to answer all these questions in this exploration of Samira’s life story.

Hajj Moussa Ali

He was Samira’s first hero. When he heard the news of the birth of his fourth daughter, he thanked Allah (SWT) for the precious gift He had bestowed upon him. Against all odds, he vowed to provide his seven daughters with an education, as he later provided for his sons.  

Samira was born on March 3 1917, in the village of Sinbu Al-Kubra in Egypt’s Al-Gharbiyah governorate. When she was two years old, Egypt witnessed the 1919 revolution for independence. Samira grew up with local villagers meeting at her family home to discuss the political situation, and repeatedly heard them calling out pro-independence slogans.

Against this backdrop, Samira grew into a patriotic young woman who prided herself on her Egyptian and Arab identity. Meanwhile, Egypt witnessed a movement that called for freedom of education for women, on all levels.  Activists like Safiyah Zaghlool, Huda Sha’rawi and Nabawiyah Moussa were the vanguards of this movement, which indirectly supported Samira in her pursuit of a higher education. 

Encouraged by family and friends, Samira’s father brushed aside prevalent traditions that did not favor women’s education, and supported his daughter throughout her scholarly journey.

At a tender age, Samira learned how to read and write and memorized several chapters of the Holy Quran. She was fond of reading newspapers, which were always available at home, and she was blessed with a good memory that enabled her to memorize texts after having read them only once.  When Sa’d Zaghlool died on Nov. 23 1927, Samira, aged 10, eloquently and flawlessly read out a news article on his death to her father’s guests. Later, when other visitors came home to hear the news, she recited the entire text from memory.

From the Village to the City

In order for his children to get a better education, Hajj Moussa moved with his family to Cairo and invested in a hotel in the Al-Hussein area. Samira was enrolled at the Qasr Ash-Showq Elementary School, and later at the Banat Al-Ashraf High School, a private institute founded and run by Nabawiyah Moussa.

Throughout her school years, Samira excelled and was awarded accolades of excellence. In 1935, she became the first female student to come out first place in the countrywide secondary school certificate examination. This was an unprecedented achievement, as girls were only allowed to take this exam from home, a ruling that changed in 1925, with the establishment of the Ameera Faiza School, the first public high school for girls. 

As the government subsidized the school that graduated the top student, Samira’s continued excellence had a great impact on her school, and that was why the principal resolved to invest in a laboratory when she heard that Samira intended to transfer to a government school that had a scientific laboratory.

The year 1933 witnessed one of Samira’s outstanding accomplishments: in grade 10, she rewrote the Algebra curriculum textbook, had it printed at her father’s expense and distributed it free of charge among her classmates. 

A Dream Come True

Samira fulfilled her lifetime dream when she enrolled at the Faculty of Science.  Her marks qualified her for admission to the Faculty of Engineering at a time when female students aspired to get admission to the Faculty of Literature, which required lower marks. 

Samira donned her white coat and entered the laboratory eager to further her knowledge. Her enthusiasm and intelligence demanded the attention of her professor, Ali Musharafa PhD, the first Egyptian dean of the Faculty.

Musharafa was Samira’s second hero. He had a direct impact on her, and she was impressed by his knowledge and personality.

Samira obtained a Masters degree in Science, coming first in her class. She was later appointed as a lecturer at the Faculty thanks to Musharafa’s efforts; he fought for her appointment amid protests voiced by foreign faculty members, particularly Professor Ayres from Great Britain.

Samira, who did her thesis on gas thermal convection, was sent by the Faculty to Britain to further her studies in nuclear radiation; she later obtained her PhD in radiology and the effect of X-ray radiation on various materials. Having completed her thesis within two years, she spent a third doing extensive research, which equipped her to discover an important formula for the fragmentation of cheap metals (such as copper) and making a nuclear bomb from materials accessible to all nations. The possession of nuclear technology would have empowered poor nations to break the monopolization of this technology by richer nations.

Nuclear Technology For Peace

Unfortunately, Samira’s research was not documented in any Arabic scientific literature, and we can only take a journey through her thoughts and ideas and attempt to benefit from them.

She hoped that Egypt and the Arab world would one day position themselves as contributors to the great scientific development. She believed that the possession of nuclear weapons would help nations contribute to world peace, for in order for any country to effectively advocate peace, it should be able to speak from a position of power. Samira lived in an era that witnessed woeful wars and the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

She noted Israel's keenness to acquire weapons of mass destruction in its pursuit to become the only nuclear power in the region: three months after the declaration of the state of Israel in 1948, it founded the Atomic Energy Commission and made sure that students were sent abroad to specialize in nuclear science. Samira frequently referred to the importance of nuclear weapons and keeping abreast of the growing advancement in science and technology.

These observations disturbed Samira and motivated her efforts that resulted in the development of her formula, which was not well received in the West.

Samira worked towards the establishment of the Atomic Energy Commission in Egypt. She also organized the Atomic Energy for Peace conference, which was hosted by the Faculty of Science and attended by a large number of international scientists.

She hoped that atomic energy would be harnessed for the good of man, especially in the field of medical treatment, and said, "My wish is that through the use of atomic energy, cancer treatment would be within the reach of the masses just as aspirin is.” Samira volunteered to help treat cancer patients at various Qasr Al-Aini hospitals. 

Samira was a member of a variety of specialized science committees such as the Committee for Energy and Guarding Against the Threats of Atomic Bombs, which was founded by the Ministry of Health in Egypt.

The Student and the Woman

Samira was fond of reading and owned a large collection of books, which included literary and historical books, as well as biographies of outstanding leaders. Samira's collection was later donated to the National Research Center.

She had an ear for music; she played the lute and was good at reading music. She was also good at photography, a skill she honed by earmarking a section of her house for developing films and printing photos. Samira was fond of knitting, especially tricot, and she designed and made her own clothes.

During her studies at the Faculty of Science, she took part in all student activities. In 1932, she joined a student uprising in protest against statements made by British Lord Samuel. She also participated in the Al-Qirsh campaign for the establishment of a local factory to produce fezzes, a project that her teacher Musharafa co-supervised.

She was also a member of the Student Society for Public Education, which aimed at eradicating illiteracy in rural Egypt, and joined the Social Renaissance Society, which raised funds for assisting poor families and homeless children.

Like Musharafa, Samira was influenced by the contribution of early Muslim scholars; she wrote an article about Muhammad Al-Khawarizmi and his major role in laying the foundation for Algebra. She wrote several other articles including a simplified article on nuclear energy, which addressed the structure of the atom, nuclear fission and its destructive power, and radiation and its biological effects. 

In an article entitled Our Responsibility Towards Science, Samira urged governments to give science first priority, improve various industries, increase production, and facilitate the means of communication. She also called for wider co-operation in the field of science and technology.

Samira travelled to Great Britain and then to the United States. She was not taken by its glitter and temptations. In a letter to her father, she wrote:

“In America there are no customs and traditions like those we know in Egypt. People here start everything haphazardly. Americans are a mixture of various peoples; many came here with nothing and behave like foreign visitors who think that no one would criticize them because they are strangers.”

Accident or Assassination?

More than 50 years have passed since Samira’s demise, and the incident that resulted in her death is still shrouded in mystery.

In 1951 Samira accepted an invitation to visit the United States and had an opportunity to do research at Saint Louis University in Missouri. She received various offers that required her to live in the United States, but she rejected them saying, “Egypt, my dear homeland, is waiting for me.” A few days before her scheduled return to Egypt, she was invited to visit a nuclear plant in a Californian suburb, and a car was sent to fetch her. While travelling on a high cliff road en route to California on August 15, a truck suddenly appeared and hit the car, pushing it off the cliff. The driver of the car in which Samira was riding managed to get out of the vehicle and disappeared. Investigations showed that the driver was using a false identification and that the management of the nuclear plant had not sent anybody to fetch Samira.

In a letter sent to her father, she had written: “If Egypt had advanced laboratories like the ones available here, I would have been able to do many things.” Muhammad Az-Zayat, the Egyptian Cultural Counsellor in Washington, reflected that the term “many things” was an indication of her ability to invent a device for fragmenting cheap metals into atoms through gas thermal convection and manufacturing a low-cost atomic bomb. On her return, Samira had intended to set up her laboratory in the Al-Haram area.

In her last letter she wrote: “I have been able to visit nuclear plants in America, and when I come back to Egypt, I will be of great service to my country and will be able to serve the cause of peace.” 

Where is the truck that hit the car that Samira was driving? Why could the U.S. police not determine who orchestrated the incident? Why was the case dismissed and no one held responsible? Was it an accident or an assassination?

This is how the life of a great scholar ended on August 15, 1952. Amongst the items returned to Samira’s father was her small black diary. Her last entry read: “Then the sun set.”

Noha Salama is a staff-writer with IslamOnline’s Science & Technology Arabic page. She has a bachelor’s degree in Biology from Cairo University’s Faculty of Science and is currently working on her Master’s Degree. She can be reached at nohasalama70@hotmail.com.