[1] Her father was Abdallah al-Ajami, a prominent Damascene landowner, businessman and influential figure of the church, whilst her mother was a Syrian woman of Greek descent.

[2] She spent her formative years in Damascus, where she received an education from Irish and Russian missionary schools, before studying nursing and graduating from the Syrian Protestant College in Beirut in 1906.

As the editor-in-chief, she was able to employ a few educated girls to serve on its editorial board, although she had the young women sign their journalist contributions under an assumed name for their protection from harassment in Syria's male-dominated society.

Ajami's first editorial in the new periodical was a manifesto for Syria's emerging feminist movement, dedicating her work "To those who believe that in the spirit of women in the strength to kill the germs of corruption, and that in her hand is the weapon to rend the gloom of opposition, and in her mouth the solace to lighten human misery.

While the journal was a rousing success among the country's female educated elite, it was scorned by conservative Muslim readers who condemned its messages and sought to abolish it.During World War I, the journal suspended publication and Ajami wrote editorials for the Egyptian newspaper al-Ahrar (Free Patriots), and for al-Islah (Reform), an Arabic newspaper based in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

[4] Joseph T. Zeidan reminds us that her achievements "must be assessed in the light of formidable obstacles she encountered while struggling to keep her journal alive, not least of which were her father's attempts to persuade her to quit.