Career
Around this time, Thuraya established the Damascene Women's Awakening Society to promote a female intelligentsia, and became a prominent women's rights activist in the 1930s. 1930 saw her establishing the Women's School Alumnae Association for educated women. In May 1942, she led a protest march by one hundred women to the government headquarters in Damascus, where they all lifted their veils.
She gave a speech arguing that 'the veil we wore was never mentioned in God's Holy Book or by the Prophet Mohammad'. In 1947, she became an instructor in Arabic literature at Damascus's prestitious Tajheez School. In the 1953s, Thuraya became the first woman to nominate herself for a seat in the Syrian parliament.
She claimed that the vote itself was tampered with and that she had in fact secured 75% of the vote. Thuraya's husband, Munir al-Rayyes, owned the Damascus daily paper Barada, for which Thuraya began writing in 1953. In the same year, she 'launched her own literary and political salon in Damascus, which was open to both genders.
