Fatana Najib (born 9 August 1953) is an Afghan

linguist Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

and 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 ...

. She served as First Lady from 30 September 1987 until 16 April 1992. She was the wife of

PDPA PDPA can refer to: *People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan – a communist party * Personal Data Protection Act 2012 – a Singapore law governing the use and protection of personal data * Professional Dart Players Association – a trade associ ...

general secretary and Afghan president

Mohammad Najibullah Mohammad Najibullah Ahmadzai (6 August 1947 – 27 September 1996) was an Afghan military officer and politician who served as the second president of Afghanistan from 1987 until his resignation in April 1992, shortly after the Afghan mujahideen' ...

, who was murdered in 1996 by the

Taliban , leader1_title = Supreme Leader of Afghanistan, Supreme leaders , leader1_name = {{indented plainlist, * Mullah Omar{{Natural Causes{{nbsp(1994–2013) * Akhtar Mansour{{Assassinated (2015–2016) * Hibatullah Akhundzada (2016–present) ...

. During her period as First Lady, Najib provided support to families of servicemembers of the

Afghan Armed Forces The Afghan Armed Forces, officially the Armed Forces of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (, ) and also referred to as the Islamic Emirate Armed Forces, is the military of Afghanistan, commanded by the Taliban government from 1997 to 2001 and a ...

, visiting the families of wounded soldiers.

Personal life

Najib is from the royal line of

King Amanullah Ghazi (warrior), Ghazi Amanullah Khan (Pashto/Dari: ; 1 June 1892 – 26 April 1960) was the head of state, sovereign of Afghanistan from 1919, first as Emirate of Afghanistan, Emir and after 1926 as Kingdom of Afghanistan, King, until his abdic ...

. Najib met the future Afghan leader,

when she was an eighth-grade student and he was her science tutor. They married on September 1, 1974, and had three daughters, Heela (born 1977), Moska (born 1984) Onai (born 1978). Najib later became principal of the Peace School in Kabul. Najib and her three daughters fled Afghanistan in 1992 to live in exile in Delhi, India. She has resided in India ever since, while Heela and Moska have studied and worked abroad. Heela has worked and lived in Thailand and currently lives in Switzerland where she graduated from Franklin College and now studies for a Ph.D. in religious studies at the

University of Zurich The University of Zurich (UZH, ) is a public university, public research university in Zurich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 from the existing colleges of the ...

. Moska was also educated in Switzerland and lives and works in Singapore.

References

1953 births Living people First ladies of Afghanistan Linguists from Afghanistan Women linguists Afghan expatriates in India Refugees in India {{Afghanistan-bio-stub