North African Women Who Shaped History
A pharaoh who ruled Egypt for two decades, a Berber queen who held back an invading army, and a doctor who wrote the book on women's bodies that her government tried to ban. North Africa's women have been rulers, rebels, and writers for three thousand years. Start here to meet them.
15 women from North Africa
ContemporaryAminatou Haidar
The 'Sahrawi Gandhi', a nonviolent resistance leader who survived four years of secret detention and torture, and whose 32-day airport hunger strike in 2009 forced Morocco into a rare public climb-down before the eyes of the world.
ContemporaryAsmaa Mahfouz
Egyptian activist whose video blog posts in January 2011 called on Egyptians to protest in Tahrir Square and helped spark the Egyptian Revolution that toppled President Hosni Mubarak. She was 25 years old. Her four-minute video is considered one of the most significant acts of citizen activism in the history of the Arab world.
ModernAssia Djebar
Algerian novelist and filmmaker born Fatima-Zohra Imalayen in Cherchell. The first Algerian woman admitted to the Ecole Normale Superieure in Paris, she wrote about Algerian women's silenced histories, war, colonialism, and identity. Elected to the Academie Francaise in 2005.
Pre-ColonialDihya
Berber warrior queen and military leader who commanded a coalition of North African tribes against the Arab conquest of North Africa in the late 7th century. She held off one of the most powerful military forces in the medieval world for years. Also known as Kahina, meaning prophetess, she remains one of the most celebrated symbols of Algerian and Berber identity.
IndependenceDjamila Bouhired
Algerian resistance fighter of the Battle of Algiers whose torture and death sentence became a global scandal that helped expose the brutality of French colonial rule. She walked free as Algeria won independence and remains one of the revolution's most enduring faces.
IndependenceDoria Shafik
The Egyptian philosopher and publisher who stormed parliament with 1,500 women and starved herself until Egypt promised women the vote, then was erased from history for defying Nasser.
Pre-ColonialFatima al-Fihri
Tunisian-born founder of al-Qarawiyyin in Fez, Morocco, recognised by UNESCO and Guinness World Records as the oldest existing, continually operating university in the world.
Pre-ColonialHatshepsut
Ancient Egyptian pharaoh who ruled one of the most powerful empires in the world for over 20 years, around 3,500 years ago. She launched great trade expeditions, built some of Egypt's most magnificent monuments, and was so threatening to those who came after her that they tried to erase her from history entirely. They failed.
ColonialHuda Shaarawi
Pioneer Egyptian feminist and nationalist who founded the Egyptian Feminist Union. Famously removed her veil in public in 1923 and led the Arab women's rights movement.
ColonialLalla Fatma N'Soumer
Algerian resistance leader who commanded Kabyle forces against the French colonial invasion in the 1850s, becoming one of North Africa's most celebrated anti-colonial warriors.
ContemporaryNawal El Moutawakel
The Moroccan hurdler who won the first ever women's 400m hurdles at the 1984 Olympics, becoming the first Moroccan, Arab, African, and Muslim woman to take Olympic gold, then rose to the top of world sport as an IOC Vice President.
ModernNawal El Saadawi
Egyptian feminist writer, psychiatrist, and activist who spent five decades fighting patriarchy, religious conservatism, and female genital mutilation at great personal cost: losing her job, being imprisoned, and living under death threats. Author of over 50 books translated into more than 30 languages. Called 'the Simone de Beauvoir of the Arab world.'
ModernTawhida Ben Cheikh
The first modern female doctor of Tunisia and North Africa, who graduated in Paris in 1936 and spent a century of life opening medicine, family planning, and freedom of choice to Tunisian women.
Pre-ColonialTin Hinan
Legendary 4th-century Tuareg queen and ancestral mother of the Kel Ahaggar confederacy, whose tomb in the Algerian Sahara remains one of the most significant archaeological discoveries in North African history.
ModernUmm Kulthum
Egyptian singer known as the Star of the East and the most famous Arab singer of the 20th century. Born around 1898 in a small Delta village, she rose to become a cultural icon whose concerts lasted four to six hours. Her funeral in 1975 drew four million mourners, a crowd larger than that for Nasser.