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Zeenat Quraishi Karzai (born 1970) is the wife of former President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai and was the First Lady of Afghanistan from 2001 to 2014. Originally from the city of Kandahar, she moved to Kabul, where she lived at the Arg (the Presidential palace) with her husband and their four children.
In 1993, she and her family escaped from the civil war to neighboring Quetta in
Education and career
Born in 1970 and raised in Kandahar, Afghanistan, the daughter of acivil servant
The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil service personnel hired rather than elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leadership. A civil service offic ...
, Zenat Quraishi moved to Kabul after high school to attend Kabul University.
She was a gynaecologist
Gynaecology or gynecology (see American and British English spelling differences) is the area of medicine concerned with conditions affecting the female reproductive system. It is often paired with the field of obstetrics, which focuses on pre ...
by profession and worked in hospitals treating Afghan refugees in Pakistan before she married Hamid Karzai.
Family
She is an ethnic Pashtun. Zeenat belongs to the Quraish family line and her husband Karzai is from the Popalzai tribe.
In 1993, she and her family escaped from the civil war to neighboring Quetta in Balochistan, Pakistan
Balochistan (; ; , ) is a province of Pakistan. Located in the southwestern region of the country, Balochistan is the largest province of Pakistan by land area but is the least populated one. It is bordered by the Pakistani provinces of Khybe ...
.
She is a distant relative of Hamid Karzai.
They have one son and three daughters.
For a president who has been credited for helping the women of Afghanistan regain their civil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' political freedom, freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and ...
, Karzai has been criticized for being overly conservative with his own spouse. Many have accused Karzai of keeping the first lady out of the media's reach over fears of criticism from conservative mullah
Mullah () is an honorific title for Islam, Muslim clergy and mosque Imam, leaders. The term is widely used in Iran and Afghanistan and is also used for a person who has higher education in Islamic theology and Sharia, sharia law.
The title h ...
s and religious leaders.
See also
* Rula Ghani * Queens of AfghanistanReferences