Our brave Pashtun women !

[Roshina]

Malalai Yusufzai

Malala Yousafzai: "The voice of women and students in Swat"

She became famous for speaking out against the Taliban in 2009, particularly in documentaries about her life by Adam B. Ellick, a prominent video journalist of the New York Times. One is titled "Class dismissed in Swat Valley" and the other "A School Girl's Odyssey."

("Class Dismissed" can be viewed at: Class Dismissed in Swat Valley - Video Library - The New York Times)

I've heard that, on March 8th 2010, "she was the most lauded speaker of seminar held in Lahore by HRCP on the eve of International Women's day" (quote from "Tribute to Pakhtun Women" by Zahid Bunery).

Malala kept a diary during the Taliban era in Swat about her daily life for BBC Urdu, it is said (same source as above). She wrote under the pen name of "Gul Makai" in an attempt to avoid bringing upon herself the wrath of the extremists and militants.

Malalai with her father

[MeemWawMeemNoon]

This is a nice thread. Masha Allah.

[Roshina]

I'm starting to think there's something naturally important about the name "Malalai." There's the Malalai of Maiwand and these three Malalais that we know of now.

The next ones are coming up.

[Roshina]

Shaista Sadat

Shaista Sadat anchors "TV Ashna" ("Ashna" means "friend" in Pashto). There are no other TV broadcasts into Afghanistan in the native languages.

SHAISTA SADAT, "TV Ashna," Voice of America: We want to connect, actually, people in the United States with the people of Afghanistan right over there. We are like a window of the Western world to them. They have never had this.

[Roshina]

Mehvish Rukhsana Khan

Mehvish Rukhsana Khan, author of the book My Guantanamo Diary and a lawyer (in the U.S.) by profession. She was born to immigrant Pashtun parents in Michigan (USA). She received her law degree from the University of Miami and soon after, "became enraged by the illegal detainment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay."

Because she is fluent in Pashto, she was accepted to be an interpreter for Afghan detainees. "Six months later, in January 2006, Khan was on her way to Guantanamo Bay. Her role with the detainees quickly developed. She began providing supervised legal counsel and traveled to Afghanistan to find exonerating evidence for prisoners."

More about her here.

[Roshina]

NOTE: Thread moved to the Pashtun History section, since these women now have earned their place in our history. I think it's serious enough to belong there, as the "Hujra" is mostly used for chit-chat and non-serious discussions/topics. If any objections, please let me know.

[Palwasha]

Mehvish Rukhsana Khan..

Bravo Mehvish. MashAllah.

Have you read her book, is it any good?

[Admin Khan]

Malalai of Maiwand,Kandahar is followed by Nazo Ana of Kandahar.

Nazo Ana

One of the most distinguished and prestigious woman in the Afghan history is Nazo Tukhi, better known as Nazo Anaa. Nazo Anaa was born in 1061 A.H. (1682 A.D.) She was the daughter of Sultan Malkhi Tukhi, an independent chief of the varies tribes and clans stretching form Ghazni to Jaldika. She was married to Khalim Khan Hotak. Nazo Anaa had four sons, Abdul Kader Khan, Abdul Aziz Khan, Yahya Khan and the eldest Mirwais Khan, better know as Mirwais Neekah, one of the greatest ruler in the Afghan history.
Nazo Anaa was a great intellectual and a poet. She started her education in her early childhood, and soon at this early age stunned her teachers and the elders of the her tribe with her cognizance and charisma. She grew up to be one the best known and respectable woman of her time and in Afghan history. She gained a remarkable prestige for her knowledge, affection, generosity, and hospitality among the people. The tales of her generosity and hospitality were known form Khyber to Kohshon (in present day Iran). She used to treat hundreds of lodgers, especially in the winter time, giving them food, cloths, and a place to sleep in her castle. Nazo Anaa was also a courageous lady, and has left many stories of her heroinism, the famous of which was when her father died in a battle near Soor Ghar (red mountain), and her brother Hajji Addel Tukhi left to avenge their father. Nazo Anaa was left to the defence of the castle and the village. She dressed like a worrier and fought against the enemy to their defeat.
Nazo Anaa was sensible, sharp-witted, resolute woman with a noble soul. She took great stride to educate and discipline her children in the Islamic way of life. From the start, her nobility was expressed in her feeding her babies while in udhu (abolition). She took exceptional care in the education of Mirwais Khan, after an oracle from Sheikh Beet Neekah, writer, thinker and leader of tenth century Afghanistan, in her sleep, in the days when Mirwais Khan was born. She was told to "educate her son well, for that he will grow up to be a leader who will perform great service for his people, go to the house of God, and from will bore a magnificent dynasty that will lighten the people with Islam."
Nazo Anaa's intellect and love for Islam is best reveled by her poems. She has written many poems in praise of Allah. She had a Dewaan (a complete poem book) which contained a total of two thousands couplets. Here is one of her couplet:
it was dawn and branches of narcissus sopping
trickle from its eyes they were dropping
I said beauty what, why you crying
it said my life is but one big smile


Her tokhey :


http://www.pashtunforums.com/pashtun-history-8/nazo-ana-4487/

[Tamara]

Meena Keshwar Kamal




Meena Keshwar Kamal (Pashto/Persian: مینا کشور کمال), commonly known as Meena, (February 27, 1956 – February 4, 1987) was an Afghan feminist and activist on behalf of women's rights. She founded the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) in 1977, a group organized to promote equality and education for women.
In 1979, she campaigned against what she perceived as a Russian puppet state controlling Afghanistan, and organized meetings in schools to mobilize support against it, and in 1981, she launched a bilingual feminist magazine, Payam-e-Zan (Women's Message). She also founded Watan Schools to aid refugee children and their mothers, offering both hospitalization and the teaching of practical skills.
At the end of 1981, by invitation of the French Government Meena represented the Afghan resistance movement at the French Socialist Party Congress. The Soviet delegation at the Congress, headed by Boris Ponamaryev, left the hall as participants cheered when Meena started waving a victory sign.
She was assassinated in Quetta, Pakistan on February 4, 1987. Reports vary as to who the assassins were, but are believed to have been agents of KHAD, the Afghan secret police, or of fundamentalist Mujahideen leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. [3]
Kamal was married to Afghanistan Liberation Organization leader Faiz Ahmad, who himself was murdered by agents of Hekmatyar on November 12, 1986. She also has three children whose whereabouts are unknown.
Time Magazine on Nov.13, 2006, in a special issue included Meena among "60 Asian Heroes" and wrote: "Although she was only 30 when she died, Meena had already planted the seeds of an Afghan women's rights movement based on the power of knowledge."
RAWA says about her: "Meena gave 12 years of her short but brilliant life to struggle for her homeland and her people. She had a strong belief that despite the darkness of illiteracy, ignorance of fundamentalism, and corruption and decadence of sell outs imposed on our women under the name of freedom and equality, finally that half of population will be awaken and cross the path towards freedom, democracy and women's rights. The enemy was rightly shivering with fear by the love and respect that Meena was creating within the hearts of our people. They knew that within the fire of her fights all the enemies of freedom, democracy and women would be turned to ashes."
An enduring quote from Meena states:
“ Afghan women are like sleeping lions, when they awoken, can play a wonderful role in any social revolution.

[Roshina]

^ Oh God :S She was so young when she was killed! Such a pity we can't tolerate brave women like her!

[flower]

Sitara Achakzai

Sitara Achakzai was a very brave lady who was murdered by the Taliban last year. Here is what the news said about her:

Sitara Achakzai, Female Afghan Politician, Gunned Down by Taliban
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - A female provincial official known for fighting for women's rights was gunned down in southern Afghanistan on Sunday, following a day of fighting in the region that left 22 militants dead, officials said.
A Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousef Ahmedi, claimed responsibility for the attack.
Gunmen killed Sitara Achakzai outside her home in Kandahar city and then drove off, said Matiullah Khan Qateh, police chief of Kandahar province. He said the four men drove up on two motorcycles and shot Achakzai as she was getting out of her car.
Achakzai, a dual German-Afghan citizen, spent the years of Taliban rule in Germany and returned to her native country to fight for women's rights, said Shahida Bibi, a member of the Kandahar women's association who worked with Achakzai.
A member of Kandahar's provincial council, Achakzai was vocal in encouraging women to take jobs and encouraging them to fight for equal rights, Bibi said.






This lovely article was written about her April 14, 2009 by Kamran Pasha:
Sitara Achakzai, Martyr for Muslim Women
This weekend, the Taliban murdered Sitara Achakzai, Afghanistan's leading activist for women's rights. She was gunned down in broad daylight by assassins in front of her house. Ms. Achakzai was an instrumental figure in promoting women's rights in the war torn country that has become the symbol of everything that is wrong with the Muslim world today. Earlier this year, she led a nationwide sit-in of 11,000 Afghan women in seven provinces who gathered to pray for peace on International Women's Day.
As a Muslim man, as a believer and as a voice in Hollywood and the media, I am here to say to her killers: you are evil, twisted men, and you will not escape the consequences of your crime against our Muslim sister, who stood for peace and justice. Even if you flee into the protective arms of your Taliban sponsors, Allah is the Lord of justice, and you will never escape Him, in this world or the next.
And you will not succeed in destroying Ms. Achakzai's legacy. In fact, you have only given it greater power. For you have made Sitara Achakzai a martyr. She died for the same reason as the first martyr of Islam, a woman named Sumayya bint Khayyat, who was killed for speaking truth to power.
In my novel, Mother of the Believers, I detail how Sumayya's killer, the Meccan leader Abu Jahl, thought that the murder of an innocent woman would terrify the poor and weak followers of Prophet Muhammad into rejecting monotheism and returning to the idolatry of the Arabs. Instead, Sumayya's death ignited the fire of resistance that would one day topple the proud Meccan overlords who ruled Arabia with an iron fist.
Like Sumayya, Sitara's death will only cause those of us who believe in an Islam of compassion, justice and human brotherhood to fight harder against those who would return us to the Days of Ignorance, as Arabia before Islam is called. The tragedy we now face is that the enemies of Islam, those who wish to defame and destroy our great faith, no longer speak out against it. Instead, they wrap themselves in its robes and proclaim themselves its leaders. Somewhere in the depths of Hell I know that Abu Jahl is laughing.
In my novel, I show how Islam was born as a proto-feminist movement, with Prophet Muhammad championing the rights of women in a primitive and hostile world. I portray incredible Muslim women, like the Prophet's first wife Khadija, who was a wealthy businesswoman who hired young Muhammad and then proposed marriage to him. I show Aisha, whom the Prophet married after Khadija died, and who went on to become a scholar, a statesman and a warrior who led armies. I show Sumayya, who was killed in front of her son for refusing to worship idols. I show Nusayba, the courageous housewife who defended the Prophet with a sword and a bow when he was nearly killed at the battle of Uhud. I show Fatima, the Prophet's daughter, who would feed enemy prisoners of war with her own hands to make sure that they were treated with dignity. These are the true women of Islam, the women of courage and faith without whom our religion would have been stillborn in the desert wastes. These are the women who inspired Sitara Achakzai and millions of other Muslim women to stand up against the forces of darkness and hold forth the torch of Islam. Not Islam as the fundamentalists and the Islamophobes want it to be, a religion to oppress mankind, but as it truly is - a faith that lifts up the poor and the weak and brings human beings together in the bonds of love and justice.
The Taliban and those who share their twisted, primitive vision of Islam do not know the history of their own faith. And as a result, they have become the very monsters that Islam was sent to destroy. But as long as there are courageous Muslims like Sitara Achakzai who refuse to accept the false Islam that the extremists try to ram down our throats, the true message of Prophet Muhammad will never disappear from this earth.
The last thing the Prophet said in his famous final sermon before he died was that men and women have rights over each other, and that the Muslims would be judged by how well they treated women. His words have come true, in a tragic way. Islam, the religion that began as a women's rights movement, is now seen by much of the world as a bastion of misogyny. We have been judged, and we have been found wanting.
It will be up to Muslims like Sitara Achakzai, myself, and the millions of others like us who remember what Islam was meant to be, to put us back on track.


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This weekend, the Taliban murdered Sitara Achakzai, Afghanistan's leading activist for women's rights.
This weekend, the Taliban murdered Sitara Achakzai, Afghanistan's leading activist for women's rights. She was gunned down in broad daylight by assassins in front of her house. Ms. Achakzai was an instrumental figure in promoting women's rights in the war torn country that has become the symbol of everything that is wrong with the Muslim world today. Earlier this year, she led a nationwide sit-in of 11,000 Afghan women in seven provinces who gathered to pray for peace on International Women's Day.
As a Muslim man, as a believer and as a voice in Hollywood and the media, I am here to say to her killers: you are evil, twisted men, and you will not escape the consequences of your crime against our Muslim sister, who stood for peace and justice. Even if you flee into the protective arms of your Taliban sponsors, Allah is the Lord of justice, and you will never escape Him, in this world or the next.
And you will not succeed in destroying Ms. Achakzai's legacy. In fact, you have only given it greater power. For you have made Sitara Achakzai a martyr. She died for the same reason as the first martyr of Islam, a woman named Sumayya bint Khayyat, who was killed for speaking truth to power.
In my novel, Mother of the Believers, I detail how Sumayya's killer, the Meccan leader Abu Jahl, thought that the murder of an innocent woman would terrify the poor and weak followers of Prophet Muhammad into rejecting monotheism and returning to the idolatry of the Arabs. Instead, Sumayya's death ignited the fire of resistance that would one day topple the proud Meccan overlords who ruled Arabia with an iron fist.
Like Sumayya, Sitara's death will only cause those of us who believe in an Islam of compassion, justice and human brotherhood to fight harder against those who would return us to the Days of Ignorance, as Arabia before Islam is called. The tragedy we now face is that the enemies of Islam, those who wish to defame and destroy our great faith, no longer speak out against it. Instead, they wrap themselves in its robes and proclaim themselves its leaders. Somewhere in the depths of Hell I know that Abu Jahl is laughing.
In my novel, I show how Islam was born as a proto-feminist movement, with Prophet Muhammad championing the rights of women in a primitive and hostile world. I portray incredible Muslim women, like the Prophet's first wife Khadija, who was a wealthy businesswoman who hired young Muhammad and then proposed marriage to him. I show Aisha, whom the Prophet married after Khadija died, and who went on to become a scholar, a statesman and a warrior who led armies. I show Sumayya, who was killed in front of her son for refusing to worship idols. I show Nusayba, the courageous housewife who defended the Prophet with a sword and a bow when he was nearly killed at the battle of Uhud. I show Fatima, the Prophet's daughter, who would feed enemy prisoners of war with her own hands to make sure that they were treated with dignity. These are the true women of Islam, the women of courage and faith without whom our religion would have been stillborn in the desert wastes. These are the women who inspired Sitara Achakzai and millions of other Muslim women to stand up against the forces of darkness and hold forth the torch of Islam. Not Islam as the fundamentalists and the Islamophobes want it to be, a religion to oppress mankind, but as it truly is - a faith that lifts up the poor and the weak and brings human beings together in the bonds of love and justice.
The Taliban and those who share their twisted, primitive vision of Islam do not know the history of their own faith. And as a result, they have become the very monsters that Islam was sent to destroy. But as long as there are courageous Muslims like Sitara Achakzai who refuse to accept the false Islam that the extremists try to ram down our throats, the true message of Prophet Muhammad will never disappear from this earth.
The last thing the Prophet said in his famous final sermon before he died was that men and women have rights over each other, and that the Muslims would be judged by how well they treated women. His words have come true, in a tragic way. Islam, the religion that began as a women's rights movement, is now seen by much of the world as a bastion of misogyny. We have been judged, and we have been found wanting.
It will be up to Muslims like Sitara Achakzai, myself, and the millions of others like us
This weekend, the Taliban murdered Sitara Achakzai, Afghanistan's leading activist for women's rights. She was gunned down in broad daylight by assassins in front of her house. Ms. Achakzai was an instrumental figure in promoting women's rights in the war torn country that has become the symbol of everything that is wrong with the Muslim world today. Earlier this year, she led a nationwide sit-in of 11,000 Afghan women in seven provinces who gathered to pray for peace on International Women's Day.
As a Muslim man, as a believer and as a voice in Hollywood and the media, I am here to say to her killers: you are evil, twisted men, and you will not escape the consequences of your crime against our Muslim sister, who stood for peace and justice. Even if you flee into the protective arms of your Taliban sponsors, Allah is the Lord of justice, and you will never escape Him, in this world or the next.
And you will not succeed in destroying Ms. Achakzai's legacy. In fact, you have only given it greater power. For you have made Sitara Achakzai a martyr. She died for the same reason as the first martyr of Islam, a woman named Sumayya bint Khayyat, who was killed for speaking truth to power.
In my novel, Mother of the Believers, I detail how Sumayya's killer, the Meccan leader Abu Jahl, thought that the murder of an innocent woman would terrify the poor and weak followers of Prophet Muhammad into rejecting monotheism and returning to the idolatry of the Arabs. Instead, Sumayya's death ignited the fire of resistance that would one day topple the proud Meccan overlords who ruled Arabia with an iron fist.
Like Sumayya, Sitara's death will only cause those of us who believe in an Islam of compassion, justice and human brotherhood to fight harder against those who would return us to the Days of Ignorance, as Arabia before Islam is called. The tragedy we now face is that the enemies of Islam, those who wish to defame and destroy our great faith, no longer speak out against it. Instead, they wrap themselves in its robes and proclaim themselves its leaders. Somewhere in the depths of Hell I know that Abu Jahl is laughing.
In my novel, I show how Islam was born as a proto-feminist movement, with Prophet Muhammad championing the rights of women in a primitive and hostile world. I portray incredible Muslim women, like the Prophet's first wife Khadija, who was a wealthy businesswoman who hired young Muhammad and then proposed marriage to him. I show Aisha, whom the Prophet married after Khadija died, and who went on to become a scholar, a statesman and a warrior who led armies. I show Sumayya, who was killed in front of her son for refusing to worship idols. I show Nusayba, the courageous housewife who defended the Prophet with a sword and a bow when he was nearly killed at the battle of Uhud. I show Fatima, the Prophet's daughter, who would feed enemy prisoners of war with her own hands to make sure that they were treated with dignity. These are the true women of Islam, the women of courage and faith without whom our religion would have been stillborn in the desert wastes. These are the women who inspired Sitara Achakzai and millions of other Muslim women to stand up against the forces of darkness and hold forth the torch of Islam. Not Islam as the fundamentalists and the Islamophobes want it to be, a religion to oppress mankind, but as it truly is - a faith that lifts up the poor and the weak and brings human beings together in the bonds of love and justice.
The Taliban and those who share their twisted, primitive vision of Islam do not know the history of their own faith. And as a result, they have become the very monsters that Islam was sent to destroy. But as long as there are courageous Muslims like Sitara Achakzai who refuse to accept the false Islam that the extremists try to ram down our throats, the true message of Prophet Muhammad will never disappear from this earth.
The last thing the Prophet said in his famous final sermon before he died was that men and women have rights over each other, and that the Muslims would be judged by how well they treated women. His words have come true, in a tragic way. Islam, the religion that began as a women's rights movement, is now seen by much of the world as a bastion of misogyny. We have been judged, and we have been found wanting.
It will be up to Muslims like Sitara Achakzai, myself, and the millions of others like us who remember what Islam was meant to be, to put us back on track.
who remember what Islam was meant to be, to put us back on track.
She was gunned down in broad daylight by assassins in front of her house. Ms. Achakzai was an instrumental figure in promoting women's rights in the war torn country that has become the symbol of everything that is wrong with the Muslim world today. Earlier this year, she led a nationwide sit-in of 11,000 Afghan women in seven provinces who gathered to pray for peace on International Women's Day.
As a Muslim man, as a believer and as a voice in Hollywood and the media, I am here to say to her killers: you are evil, twisted men, and you will not escape the consequences of your crime against our Muslim sister, who stood for peace and justice. Even if you flee into the protective arms of your Taliban sponsors, Allah is the Lord of justice, and you will never escape Him, in this world or the next.
And you will not succeed in destroying Ms. Achakzai's legacy. In fact, you have only given it greater power. For you have made Sitara Achakzai a martyr. She died for the same reason as the first martyr of Islam, a woman named Sumayya bint Khayyat, who was killed for speaking truth to power.
In my novel, Mother of the Believers, I detail how Sumayya's killer, the Meccan leader Abu Jahl, thought that the murder of an innocent woman would terrify the poor and weak followers of Prophet Muhammad into rejecting monotheism and returning to the idolatry of the Arabs. Instead, Sumayya's death ignited the fire of resistance that would one day topple the proud Meccan overlords who ruled Arabia with an iron fist.
Like Sumayya, Sitara's death will only cause those of us who believe in an Islam of compassion, justice and human brotherhood to fight harder against those who would return us to the Days of Ignorance, as Arabia before Islam is called. The tragedy we now face is that the enemies of Islam, those who wish to defame and destroy our great faith, no longer speak out against it. Instead, they wrap themselves in its robes and proclaim themselves its leaders. Somewhere in the depths of Hell I know that Abu Jahl is laughing.
In my novel, I show how Islam was born as a proto-feminist movement, with Prophet Muhammad championing the rights of women in a primitive and hostile world. I portray incredible Muslim women, like the Prophet's first wife Khadija, who was a wealthy businesswoman who hired young Muhammad and then proposed marriage to him. I show Aisha, whom the Prophet married after Khadija died, and who went on to become a scholar, a statesman and a warrior who led armies. I show Sumayya, who was killed in front of her son for refusing to worship idols. I show Nusayba, the courageous housewife who defended the Prophet with a sword and a bow when he was nearly killed at the battle of Uhud. I show Fatima, the Prophet's daughter, who would feed enemy prisoners of war with her own hands to make sure that they were treated with dignity. These are the true women of Islam, the women of courage and faith without whom our religion would have been stillborn in the desert wastes. These are the women who inspired Sitara Achakzai and millions of other Muslim women to stand up against the forces of darkness and hold forth the torch of Islam. Not Islam as the fundamentalists and the Islamophobes want it to be, a religion to oppress mankind, but as it truly is - a faith that lifts up the poor and the weak and brings human beings together in the bonds of love and justice.
The Taliban and those who share their twisted, primitive vision of Islam do not know the history of their own faith. And as a result, they have become the very monsters that Islam was sent to destroy. But as long as there are courageous Muslims like Sitara Achakzai who refuse to accept the false Islam that the extremists try to ram down our throats, the true message of Prophet Muhammad will never disappear from this earth.
The last thing the Prophet said in his famous final sermon before he died was that men and women have rights over each other, and that the Muslims would be judged by how well they treated women. His words have come true, in a tragic way. Islam, the religion that began as a women's rights movement, is now seen by much of the world as a bastion of misogyny. We have been judged, and we have been found wanting.
It will be up to Muslims like Sitara Achakzai, myself, and the millions of others like us who remember what Islam was meant to be, to put us back on track.

Sitara Achakzai, Female Afghan Politician, Gunned Down By Taliban For Women's Rights Work

[Feroza_Banu]

Malalai of Maiwand,Kandahar is followed by Nazo Ana of Kandahar.

Nazo Ana

One of the most distinguished and prestigious woman in the Afghan history is Nazo Tukhi, better known as Nazo Anaa. Nazo Anaa was born in 1061 A.H. (1682 A.D.) She was the daughter of Sultan Malkhi Tukhi, an independent chief of the varies tribes and clans stretching form Ghazni to Jaldika. She was married to Khalim Khan Hotak. Nazo Anaa had four sons, Abdul Kader Khan, Abdul Aziz Khan, Yahya Khan and the eldest Mirwais Khan, better know as Mirwais Neekah, one of the greatest ruler in the Afghan history.
Nazo Anaa was a great intellectual and a poet. She started her education in her early childhood, and soon at this early age stunned her teachers and the elders of the her tribe with her cognizance and charisma. She grew up to be one the best known and respectable woman of her time and in Afghan history. She gained a remarkable prestige for her knowledge, affection, generosity, and hospitality among the people. The tales of her generosity and hospitality were known form Khyber to Kohshon (in present day Iran). She used to treat hundreds of lodgers, especially in the winter time, giving them food, cloths, and a place to sleep in her castle. Nazo Anaa was also a courageous lady, and has left many stories of her heroinism, the famous of which was when her father died in a battle near Soor Ghar (red mountain), and her brother Hajji Addel Tukhi left to avenge their father. Nazo Anaa was left to the defence of the castle and the village. She dressed like a worrier and fought against the enemy to their defeat.
Nazo Anaa was sensible, sharp-witted, resolute woman with a noble soul. She took great stride to educate and discipline her children in the Islamic way of life. From the start, her nobility was expressed in her feeding her babies while in udhu (abolition). She took exceptional care in the education of Mirwais Khan, after an oracle from Sheikh Beet Neekah, writer, thinker and leader of tenth century Afghanistan, in her sleep, in the days when Mirwais Khan was born. She was told to "educate her son well, for that he will grow up to be a leader who will perform great service for his people, go to the house of God, and from will bore a magnificent dynasty that will lighten the people with Islam."
Nazo Anaa's intellect and love for Islam is best reveled by her poems. She has written many poems in praise of Allah. She had a Dewaan (a complete poem book) which contained a total of two thousands couplets. Here is one of her couplet:
it was dawn and branches of narcissus sopping
trickle from its eyes they were dropping
I said beauty what, why you crying
it said my life is but one big smile


Her tokhey :



http://www.pashtunforums.com/pashtun...nazo-ana-4487/

very inspiring. thank you so much for sharing...

Meena Keshwar Kamal (Pashto/Persian: مینا کشور کمال), commonly known as Meena, (February 27, 1956 – February 4, 1987) was an Afghan feminist and activist on behalf of women's rights. She founded the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) in 1977, a group organized to promote equality and education for women.
In 1979, she campaigned against what she perceived as a Russian puppet state controlling Afghanistan, and organized meetings in schools to mobilize support against it, and in 1981, she launched a bilingual feminist magazine, Payam-e-Zan (Women's Message). She also founded Watan Schools to aid refugee children and their mothers, offering both hospitalization and the teaching of practical skills.
At the end of 1981, by invitation of the French Government Meena represented the Afghan resistance movement at the French Socialist Party Congress. The Soviet delegation at the Congress, headed by Boris Ponamaryev, left the hall as participants cheered when Meena started waving a victory sign.
She was assassinated in Quetta, Pakistan on February 4, 1987. Reports vary as to who the assassins were, but are believed to have been agents of KHAD, the Afghan secret police, or of fundamentalist Mujahideen leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. [3]
Kamal was married to Afghanistan Liberation Organization leader Faiz Ahmad, who himself was murdered by agents of Hekmatyar on November 12, 1986. She also has three children whose whereabouts are unknown.
Time Magazine on Nov.13, 2006, in a special issue included Meena among "60 Asian Heroes" and wrote: "Although she was only 30 when she died, Meena had already planted the seeds of an Afghan women's rights movement based on the power of knowledge."
RAWA says about her: "Meena gave 12 years of her short but brilliant life to struggle for her homeland and her people. She had a strong belief that despite the darkness of illiteracy, ignorance of fundamentalism, and corruption and decadence of sell outs imposed on our women under the name of freedom and equality, finally that half of population will be awaken and cross the path towards freedom, democracy and women's rights. The enemy was rightly shivering with fear by the love and respect that Meena was creating within the hearts of our people. They knew that within the fire of her fights all the enemies of freedom, democracy and women would be turned to ashes."
An enduring quote from Meena states:
“ Afghan women are like sleeping lions, when they awoken, can play a wonderful role in any social revolution.

really? she is a hero? the founder of RAWA... the secret agenda behind RAWA is to badmouth Islam, and convince other people of how Islam is a religion that teaches violence and unfairness against women. they are aethiests... and frankly speaking their belief is their own personal choice and i have no problem with that, but they don't loose a single opportunity to work against Islamic ideology. they believe that the solution to countless problems in afghanistan, including all the injustices happening to women and people in general, is to abandon Islam.

I know RAWA organization like the back of my hand!

[Feroza_Banu]

^I found out about RAWA actually OUTSIDE afghanistan. They are very low key in afghanistan because of how they are labeled as a anti-islamic organization. They had built a hospital in Quetta (where we came when migrated from afghanistan). they had a big famous hospital called "Malalai hospital".

This hospital was built by NGO funding. They had hired many afghan refugee doctors and nurses. they were also offering 6 months nursing courses to newly arrived jobless afghan women/girls and then later they would hire the same nurses... we knew a couple of people working for this hospital ... they were not Rawai but they were working because of lack of jobs. through the people i knew i got an opportunity to meet many many rawayees. I visited their hospital very often and i got to know how they live and what their ideology is all about.

[..]

Manana! The YouTube videos were beautiful! Reaches right into one's heart, thank you so much for sharing!

[eyeliner]

Theres a book called zoya's story, the author is a RAWA member