Sumbul Ali-Karamali grew up in California in a South Asian Muslim family. She earned her bachelor’s degree (BA) in English from Stanford University, with Distinction. After working as an editor in a small publishing company, she earned her law degree (JD) from the University of California at Davis. She practiced as a corporate lawyer for several years and then attended the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), from which she earned her masters degree (LLM) in Islamic Law, with Distinction. She worked as a teaching assistant at SOAS, as well as a research associate at the Centre of Islamic and Middle Eastern Law.
While at home raising her two children, Sumbul published several articles, both in legal journals and mainstream publications, and worked with a local civil rights advocacy group. She also served on the board of an educational institution promoting environmental education and multicultural education, which led to her receiving an Asian American Hero Award for her work in fostering cross-cultural understanding and education.
In this period, Sumbul also wrote her first book, The Muslim Next Door: the Qur’an, the Media, and that Veil Thing, which explains Islam and Islamic law for the lay reader, while combining a conversational, memoir-type, anecdotal, narrative style with academic discussions on issues ranging from the elementary to the complex.
She is currently lecturing and writing on Islam, as well as promoting her new book and continuing her involvement with organizations advocating social justice issues.
Former first lady of Egypt, Jehan Sadat has played a key role in advancing women’s rights and education, both in her native Egypt and globally.
Born in Cairo to an Egyptian father and a British mother, the young Jehan married the future President of Egypt, Anwar Sadat, in 1949. In the late 1970s, she played a pivotal role in reforming Egypt’s civil code through the Egyptian Civil Rights Laws, which expanded the rights of women in regards to alimony and divorce. In 1972, Jehan Sadat founded Wafa’ Wal Amal (Faith and Hope) which provides rehabilitation, skills training, and other social services to war veterans and civilians. It is one of the largest rehabilitation centers in the Middle East. Jehan Sadat earned her bachelor’s degree in Arabic Literature; she earned both her master’s degree and her doctorate in Comparative Literature from Cairo University.
As the founder of the African-Arab Women’s League, Jehan Sadat has attended numerous conferences and seminars as an advocate for women and children. She is also one of the founding members of the Talla Society, a cooperative that trains and equips women with practical skills to help them become economically independent and self-sufficient. In addition, she authored two books, A Woman of Egypt and My Hope for Peace.
Jehan Sadat is now an Associate Resident Scholar at the University of Maryland, where the Anwar Sadat Chair for Development and Peace was created in her late husband’s memory.
Khaleda Zia, the first female Prime Minister of Bangladesh, governed the country from 1991-1996 and again from 2001-2006. She currently leads the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP).
In 1960, she married Ziaur Rahman, who at that time was a captain in the Pakistani army. In 1971, he declared the independence of Bangladesh and became president six years later. Rahman established the BNP in order to move away from military rule.
It was after Ziaur’s assassination in 1981 that Khaleda began her political career. In 1984, the BNP elected her chairman of the party. She spent the next seven years fighting against the military government of General Hossain Mohammad Ershad. She endured political harassment and was arrested on multiple occasions. Under her leadership, the BNP – although the political opposition party – did not compromise its principles for the sake of a political alliance with the ruling military government.
Ershad resigned in 1990, and the BNP won the election a year later. In 1991, Khaleda Zia became Prime Minister after securing a majority of votes from Parliament. During her first term, Zia worked on education, gender, and environmental issues. She has been credited with instituting compulsory primary education and free education for girls up to grade 10.
Although the BNP lost to Sheikh Hassina’s Awami League in the 1996 elections, it garnered enough votes to become the largest of the opposition parties. During this time, the BNP created alliances with various other political parties. This alliance was large enough to win a majority of the votes in the 2001 elections. For the second time, Khaleda Zia was installed as Prime Minister. In 2006, she was ranked #33 in Forbes list of the 100 Most Powerful Women.
In 2006, her term as Prime Minister expired. She again ran for political office in the 2008 elections but lost to Sheikh Hassina’s Awami League.
Megawati Sukarnoputri is the former president of Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country in the world. The daughter of Indonesia’s first president and liberation hero, Sukarno, Megawati was born into one of Indonesia’s most politically powerful families. In 1967, her father was overthrown by a military coup led by Suharto.
In 1987, Megawati joined the politically sanctioned opposition party, PDI (Indonesian Democratic Party), and was elected to the People’s Representative Council (DPR), even though her party did not fare well in the legislative elections. She became such a popular figure that she was elected to lead the PDI, representing not only the legacy of her father, but general opposition to the military government. In 1996, Suharto tried to dispose her as head of the party, but protests forced him to back down. This national incident only increased her popularity, while adding to his political downfall.
In 1998, Suharto resigned and Megawati’s PDI party won the majority of votes in the parliamentary election. She became Vice-President under Abdurrahman Wahid and then president in 2001 after Mr. Wahid was removed under corruption charges.
In 2004, she ran for re-election but was defeated by Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono. She is running for re-election in July 2009.
Nawal El Moutawakel was the first woman from a Muslim-majority country to win an Olympic gold medal, the first Moroccan to win an Olympic gold medal, and the first African woman to win an Olympic medal.
Nawal was born and raised in Casablanca, Morocco. Her talent brought her to the United States, specifically to the track team at Iowa State University. While a student, she was asked by the Moroccan track team to compete with them in the 1984 summer Olympics in Los Angeles. She competed in the inaugural 400-meter hurdles event and placed first, beating her personal best by .76 seconds and winning the gold medal. The King of Morocco at the time, Hassan II, declared that every girl born on her victory day would be named Nawal in her honor.
Since her historic win, Nawal has championed female athletes all over the world. She is a member of the International Amateur Athletic Federation (IAAF), and she was selected to be a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 1998. She was president of the selection committee for the 2012 summer games and is the first Muslim woman to be on the committee.
Since 2007, she has been the Moroccan Minister of Youth and Sports. She is also the president of Association Marocaine de Sports et Developpment (AMSD), as well as the vice-president of the Moroccan Royal Federation of Athletics.
In 2000, Princess Haya competed in the Olympic Games in Sydney; she was the first Arab woman to be an Olympic flag bearer, representing the Jordanian delegation. She also qualified for the Olympic Games in Athens, and she was the first woman to win a Pan-Arab medal in equestrian sport. In 2006, she was elected President of the International Equestrian Federation – the first Arab to occupy this position – and is currently also a member of the International Athletes Commission at the International Olympic Committee.
Princess Haya tirelessly promotes a variety of social justice issues, from health to children’s welfare. She founded Tikyet Um Ali, an NGO strives to battle hunger within the Arab world. In July 2007, she was selected to be a Messenger of Peace with the United Nation, and until 2007 she was an ambassador with the World Food Programme (WFP). She established an educational foundation that supports promising young Jordanian and Emirati women to pursue their dreams. Princess Haya is also the founder of The International Jordanian Athletes Cultural Association, which promotes Jordanian athletes.
She is the daughter of King Hussein I of Jordan and Queen Alia al Hussein. She is married to Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum of the United Arab Emirates.
Born in 1947 to Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, who led Bangladesh to independence from Pakistan, Sheikh Hasina Wazed took an active role in politics as early as the 1960s. She acted as her father’s political liaison during his imprisonment in the late 1960s, when she was a student at the University of Dhaka.
In 1968, she married M.A. Wazed Miah. In 1975, her father and brothers were assassinated in a coup, but she and her sister survived because they were in Germany at the time. She returned to Bangladesh in 1981 and ran against the military government of General Hossain Mohammad Ershad. However, she spent much of the 1980s under house arrest or in prison.
In 1991, her political rival, Khaleda Zia, of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) won the Bangladesh’s first elections after the resignation of General Ershad. However in 1996, Sheikh Hasina was elected Prime Minister when her party, The Awami League, won 146 parliamentary seats. It was during this time that she was credited with signing a peace treaty with rebels in the mountainous southeast of the country.
In 2001, she was forced into the opposition again as her party fell out of political favor, due to corruption charges and because it was seen as being too close to the government of India. Since 2001, corruption and murder charges have been leveled against Sheikh Hasina, resulting in temporary forced exile. However, in 2008, she returned to Bangladesh to lead her party in the general elections. The Awami League received a landslide victory, and Skeikh Hasina became Prime Minister for the second time.
Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Missned of Qatar has played an influential role in the development of higher education for Qatar and the Middle East. She is the second of three wives of Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani.
Sheikha Mozah graduated from Qatar University in 1986 with a degree in Sociology and has been awarded honorary doctorates from Virginia Commonwealth University, Texas A&M University, Carnegie Mellon University, Imperial College London, and Georgetown University School of Foreign Service.
In 2003, she was appointed Special Envoy for Basic and Higher Education by UNESCO. In her work with UNESCO, Sheikha Mozah has been active in promoting and protecting the right to education in conflict-hit areas, particularly Gaza, Iraq and Afghanistan. In the same year, she also established the International Fund for Higher Education in Iraq. In 2005, UN General-Secretary Kofi Annan appointed her as a member of the High Level Group of the UN Alliance of Civilizations.
Sheikha Mozah is currently serving as Chairperson of the Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development. She is responsible for creating Education City, which has brought together branches of renowned universities to ‘a campus of the future.’ Sheikha Mozah is the President for the Supreme Council for Family Affairs, Vice Chairperson of both the Supreme Educational Council and the Supreme Health Council and Chairperson of the Arab Democracy Foundation. She is also the founder of Shafallah Center for Children with Special Needs.
Sheikha Mozah was awarded the Chatham House Award in 2007, which is given annually to an international statesperson who has made a significant contribution to the improvement of international relations. Forbes Magazine named her one of the 100 most powerful women in the world in 2007 and the Times of London named her one of the most 25 most influential business leaders in the Middle East.
