Advocates of even mild feminism were thin on the ground in 19th-century Egypt. But in 1899, the Cairo newspapers announced the appearance of at least one citizen who held outlandishly modern opinions on the subject. His much-reviled book, The Liberation of Women, created a controversy that remains alive today in certain corners of Islam. The heretic in question, Qasim Amin (1863-1908), a young judge from a prominent family, was hard to ignore. He was well connected among Egyptian intellectuals and a founder of Cairo University. He based his argument on patriotism. As a nationalist, he insisted that the independent Egypt...