WMF issued in the summer of 1999 the first research study in our occasional papers series: “Papers of Memory.” It is a joint research paper by Omaima Abou-Bakr and Hoda El-Saady, with the title: Women and the Medical Profession in Muslim Societies (8th – 17^thcent. A.D.). The paper is a historical survey of the women who practised medicine in early Muslim societies, with an analysis of their role in public life, of the decrease in their number through the decades and centuries, and of the issue of their representation in the official historical records. The study provides a useful compilation of their names, dates, places, and source references. In general, this series aims at producing cultural and historical material that would add important information about women’s history, cultural and popular patterns of memory, and social discourses. The series will include the various research studies (historical, analytical, critical) undertaken by members of WMF, as well as publishing the output of some of the other on-going activities for easy accessibility and dissemination to the general reader.