Aisha Taymur
Egyptian writer and women’s rights activist
Egyptian writer and women’s rights activist
Astronomer and writer
Shajar al-Durr rose from being a child slave to ruling as a sultana in Egypt.
Queen Soraya Tarzi of Afghanistan pushed to modernise the country from the 1920s onward, promoting freedoms and rights for women.
Mah Chuchak Begum was a wife of the second Mughal emperor Humayun who took over Kabul and rode into battle with her troops.
Mauritian political Aïssata Touré Kane served as the country’s first female government minister as part of President Moktar Ould Daddah’s cabinet from 1975 to 1978, when the government was overthrown by a military coup.
Libyan-Canadian photographer
Princess and poet
Moroccan pirate and ruler of Tetouan.
Educator and civil rights activist Dr Betty Shabazz was the wife, and later widow, of Malcolm X.