Despite a growing body of work on princely mirrors or advice for rulers (nasihat al-muluk) literature produced in Islamic contexts, attention to political thought in this genre from the modern period and by women remains quite rare. This is true even for a figure as well studied as Zaynab al-Ghazali, whose 1954 book, Malik wa Amal Sha'b (A King and A People’s Hope), provided an account of her travels to Saudi Arabia for the primary purpose of making the hajj, her meetings with the then Crown Prince Sa‘ud bin Abd al-Aziz al-Sa‘ud, and her extensive advice to the newly crowned King. This paper will address the following: Why has this work been so neglected and what does it reveal about al-Ghazali’s political thought, the possibilities and limitations of what is sometimes characterized as "Islamic feminism," and the claims made by comparative analysis of "mirror texts", particularly the conclusion of some American and European scholars that Islamic nasihat al-muluk remain more focused on practical use rather than political theorizing proper? I argue that, through this work, one gains a clearer view of the way in which the Islamic tradition forms the ground upon which al-Ghazali’s feminist reasoning takes place, of the ways in which she views woman’s “sacred mission” as educator of the future people of politics as extending even to a King in his 50s (her senior by a decade and a half), and of the sorts of political values and policy priorities she thinks should be at the center of modern governance.