It was the year 1905; the powerful waves of the revolution had started. In the summer in Shusha, Armenians and Moslems clashed and unrest was everywhere and the roads were dangerous. I was living in the village of Kahrizli, which…

O Lord, if I worship You because of Fear of Hell, then burn me in Hell; If I worship You because I desire Paradise, then exclude me from Paradise; But if I worship You for Yourself alone, then deny me…

Sitt al-Mulk (Lady of the Empire) was the daughter of the fifth Fatimid caliph Nizar al-Aziz Billah and a Christian mother with Byzantine heritage. Al-Aziz’s tolerance for diversity extended beyond his private life: despite criticisms, under his rule non-Muslims were…

I found life beautiful, even under shabby, routine and inadequate conditions. The revolutionary struggle made me happy and gave me life. I had self-confidence, feeling neither helplessness nor pessimism. My whole life was a struggle at every moment. This knowledge…

What feminism means for me is simply that women, like men, are complete human beings with limitless possibilities – Fahmida Riaz   Writer, novelist, translator, activist and ‘poet of resistance’, Fahmida Riaz wrote over a 15 books of prose and…

A man thinks as long as he has given a woman food and clothing he has done enough. The more conscientious husband would think he is being fair if he spends one night with one wife and the other with…

[My] book is often described as a ‘cry from the heart,’ and it is indeed a cry from the heart of all women everywhere. It is first a cry from the heart of Senegalese women, because it talks from the…

Mughal princess, Sufi scholar and poet, Jahanara was the most powerful woman in the Mughal Empire for nearly thirty years of her life, responsible for shaping the city of Shahjahanabad, and managing the imperial household. Jahanara was the much-beloved eldest…

Leyla Alasgar qizi Mammadbeyova, born Leyla Zeynalova, was the first female pilot in the Caucusus, Southern Europe and Middle Eastern region, as well as being a flight instructor who trained many other pilots. Mammadbeyova was famous across her native Azerbaijan,…

Halet Çambel was one of the first Muslim women to compete in the Olympics. However, she is best known as one of Turkey’s most important archaeologists. Born in Berlin, Halet was the granddaughter of Ibrhaim Hakki Pasha, the Ottoman Ambassador…

If women’s rights are a problem for some modern Muslim men, it is neither because of the Quran or the Prophet, nor the Islamic tradition, but simply because those rights conflict with the interests of a male elite… Islam was…