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Sayeda Doctora Zuheira Abdeen (sic !!) did many things and was many things, and all of it was good.
Let me address one aspect of her life with which I am most familiar with and most grateful for - and that was her devotion to be of service to those of us from the West who had chosen Islam and come to Egypt the better to study it, and/or the better to live it.
Now many educated and pious Egyptians find Western converts fascinating, particularly those converts who were well educated themselves and came from comfortable family backgrounds in America and therefore had little or no dunya reasons to take Islam - on the contrary, doing so made the dunya more difficult, for those of us in this category.
Because of that fascination the kind hospitality we were so often the recipients of, often overboard and in its own way quite demanding, was also tinged by complexes and even at times suspicion. After all, why did people like us take Islam, if there was no benefit in the dunya? Could it be we were all in the service of Western intelligence agencies? Such were the second or third thoughts of many very hospitable, educated and conventionally pious Egyptians we would all encounter.
That was never the case with Dr. Zuheira. I think the reason for the modesty and pure sincerity with which she dealt with Western Muslims, and took a genuine interest in our spiritual pursuits as well as our problems that needed solving, was because her Islam was not limited to conventional piety; her Islam was above all else God-Centered rather than world-centered. Because her Islam was above all else a personal spiritual experience, second by second, as she moved thru life.
Beyond the fame and honors, the university degrees, the accomplishments,, Sayeda Zuheira Abdeen was above all else, a Saint.
S. Abdallah Schleifer