Tunisia awakes : 1918-1930 : Islamic Reformers, Nationalism, Emergence of the Women’s Movement and Trade Unions Tunisia has a rich progressive Islamic tradition. Most Muslim societies have produced progressive graduates of Muslim universities, many of whom did not necessarily become religious teachers, but opted for political or social activism. Some challenged colonialism and exhorted their societies to speed up the processes of social change. However, colonial administrators allied to Muslim conservative ulema and other local elites often tried to erase from collective memory the deeds and words of these progressive individuals. Shaykh ‘Abd al-‘Azîz al-Tha‘âlbî (1876-1944), a Zaytûna graduate, collaborated with European progressives, native Jewish leaders, and the larger Tunisian Muslim population to forge a mass-based party to oppose the French protectorate leading to his exile in 1923. He had groomed his own disciple, also a Zaytûna graduate, al-Tâhir al-Haddâd (1899-1935), who, with the returned exile M’hamed ‘Ali, organized workers within an indigenous national labor movement in 1924-25. He described his activities in a book filled with astute sociological analysis published in 1927. He also championed women’s rights in Our Women in Law and Society that he wrote in 1930. Although al-Tha‘âlbî and Haddâd failed in the short term, their ideological influence on Tunisian society is enormous. They paved the way for later reforms, which made Tunisia into one of the most progressive societies in the Arab world. Using the Arab press of the period I will present materials dealing with women prior to the publication of Haddad's book to situate his work in a much larger context. Likewise, the rich poetry of the period and theatrical representations will be analyzed as contributory to the development of nationalism in the post World War I period. None of this has previously been unearthed and analyzed.