Princess Bilqis Begum

Common card · No. 423390

Princess Bilqis Begum (Pashto: بلقیس بیګم) (born 17 April 1932) is the oldest child of Mohammad Zahir Shah, the last king of Afghanistan, and his wife Humaira Begum. In 1951, she married lieutenant general Sardar Abdul Wali Khan (1925–2008). She was educated at Malalai School, in Kabul. In 1959, she and her mother supported the call by then prime minister Mohammed Daoud Khan for women to voluntary remove their veil by removing their own. This was a big event in the history of women in Afghanistan, and it was also an intentional part of the women's emancipation policy of the Daoud Government at that time. The step was carefully prepared by introducing women workers at the Radio Kabul in 1957, sending women delegates to the Asian Women's Conference in Kairo, and employing forty girls to the government pottery factory in 1958. When this was met with no riots, the government decided it was time for the very controversial step of unveiling. In August 1959 therefore, on the second day of the...

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