The neo-classical Iraqi poet Jamil Sidqi al-Zahawi (1863-1936) was deeply influenced by the writings of Egyptian and Lebanese intellectuals of the Nahda, which he read in the pages of the influential journals al-Muqtataf and al-Mu’ayyad. After reading several volumes of al-Muqtataf for the first time, Al-Zahawi declared that he felt as though he had “put his hands on the treasures of the world.” Al-Zahawi’s poetry and political essays stridently advocated for radical social and religious reform, particularly with regards to women’s rights. This liberal advocacy has caused him to be seen as extending to Iraq the ideals of liberal Egyptian reformers, in particular Qasim Amin. This paper examines al-Zahawi’s writings on women’s rights in both his poetry and prose in order to understand how his reformist message both echoed and departed from the writings of Egyptian and Lebanese intellectuals. Al-Zahawi’s 1910 essay “Al-Mar’a wa’l-Dafa’a ‘Anha (In Defense of Women), published in the Egyptian journal al-Mu’ayyad, and poems such as “Al-Mara’ wa’l Rajul” (Woman and Man), suggest that rather than simply mimic the positions of his peers, al-Zahawi engaged with, reproduced, and revised reformist discourses of the Nahda. This paper will engage these issues by addressing the following questions: How was al-Zahawi’s articulation of a specifically Iraqi “Nahda” mediated by both local factors and broader regional influences? How was his engagement with non-Iraqi interlocutors, from Iran to Egypt, formative of his thought? What might close readings of al-Zahawi’s politically engaged poetry suggest about the expression of political commitment and social reform in places long considered on the periphery of the Arab Nahda? How did this sense of cultural “belatedness” inform what some critics have identified as al-Zahawi’s radical positions?