Rula F. Saadah Ghani (Afghan name: Bibi Gul; born 1948) is a former

first lady of Afghanistan First Lady of Afghanistan was the title attributed to the wife of the president of Afghanistan. Rula Ghani, wife of former President Ashraf Ghani, was the last and most recent first lady of Afghanistan from 2014 to 2021. List of first ladies of ...

and wife of former

president of Afghanistan The president of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan was constitutionally the head of state and head of government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (2004–2021) and Commander-in-Chief of the Afghan Armed Forces. On 15 August 2021, as th ...

Ashraf Ghani Mohammad Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai (born 19 May 1949) is an Afghan politician, academic, and economist who served as the president of Afghanistan from September 2014 until August 2021, when his government was overthrown by the Taliban. Born in ...

. In 2015, Rula Ghani was named to the

Time 100 ''Time'' 100 (often stylized as ''TIME'' 100) is an annual listicle of the 100 most influential people in the world, assembled by the American news magazine ''Time''. First published in 1999 as the result of a debate among American academics, ...

, a list of the world's most influential people, by ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

'' magazine.

Personal life

Rula Ghani was born Rula Saade or Roula Saadé and raised in

Lebanon Lebanon ( , ar, لُبْنَان, translit=lubnān, ), officially the Republic of Lebanon () or the Lebanese Republic, is a country in Western Asia. It is located between Syria to Lebanon–Syria border, the north and east and Israel to Blue ...

, in a Lebanese Maronite Christian family. She received a diploma from Sciences Po, France, in 1969. She completed a master's degree in Political Studies from the American University of Beirut in 1974, where she had met her future husband,

. The couple married in 1975 and have two children: a daughter,

Mariam Ghani Mariam Ghani (Pashto/Dari: مریم غنی; born 1978) is an Afghan-American visual artist, photographer, filmmaker and social activist. Biography Mariam Ghani was born in 1978 in Brooklyn, New York, of Afghan and Lebanese descent. Her father, Mo ...

, a

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

-based visual artist, and a son, Tariq. Rula Ghani earned another

master's degree A master's degree (from Latin ) is an academic degree awarded by universities or colleges upon completion of a course of study demonstrating mastery or a high-order overview of a specific field of study or area of professional practice.

in journalism from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

in 1983. She returned to Afghanistan in 2003. Ghani holds citizenship in

Afghanistan Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan,; prs, امارت اسلامی افغانستان is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. Referred to as the Heart of Asia, it is bordere ...

, and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. She reportedly speaks

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C. E.Watson; Walter ...

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

, French,

Pashto Pashto (,; , ) is an Eastern Iranian language in the Indo-European language family. It is known in historical Persian literature as Afghani (). Spoken as a native language mostly by ethnic Pashtuns, it is one of the two official langua ...

and

Dari Dari (, , ), also known as Dari Persian (, ), is the variety of the Persian language spoken in Afghanistan. Dari is the term officially recognised and promoted since 1964 by the Afghan government for the Persian language,Lazard, G.Darī ...

Since 2014

At his presidential inauguration in 2014 Ghani publicly thanked his wife, acknowledging her with an Afghan name, Bibi Gul. "I want to thank my partner, Bibi Gul, for supporting me and Afghanistan," said President Ghani, looking emotional. "She has always supported Afghan women and I hope she continues to do so." Historian Ali A Olomi argued in 2017 that, following the precedent of Afghanistan's Queen Soraya, Rula Ghani could help bring real change for women's rights in the country. As First Lady, Ghani was an advocate for women's rights. On 15 August 2021, Ghani fled from Afghanistan with her husband, children, and two close aides as the Taliban captured Kabul; the Arg, the Afghan presidential palace, was captured a few hours later by the Taliban. On 18 August 2021, the government of the

United Arab Emirates The United Arab Emirates (UAE; ar, اَلْإِمَارَات الْعَرَبِيَة الْمُتَحِدَة ), or simply the Emirates ( ar, الِْإمَارَات ), is a country in Western Asia ( The Middle East). It is located at t ...

said that the Ghani family were in their country.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ghani, Rula 1948 births Afghan Christians Afghan expatriates in the United Arab Emirates Afghan people of Lebanese descent American University of Beirut alumni American emigrants to Afghanistan First Ladies of Afghanistan Lebanese Maronites Lebanese emigrants to the United States Living people Columbia University alumni

Personal life

Since 2014

See also

References