Soraya Tarzi

Soraya Tarzi (Pashto/Dari: ثريا طرزی) (24 November 1899 – 20 April 1968) was Queen of Afghanistan as the wife of King Amanullah Khan. As Queen, she became one of the most influential women in the world at the time. She played a major part in the modernization reforms of Amanullah Khan, particularly regarding the emancipation of women.

Owing to the reforms King Amanullah instituted, the country's religious sects grew violent. In 1929, the King abdicated to prevent a civil war and went into exile. Their first stop was India, then part of the British Empire.

Early life and family background

Suraiya Shahzada Tarzi was born on 24 November 1899, in Damascus, Syria, then part of the Ottoman Empire. She was the daughter of the Afghan political figure Sardar Mahmud Beg Tarzi, and granddaughter of Sardar Ghulam Muhammad Tarzi. She belonged to the Mohammadzai Pashtun tribe, a sub-tribe of the Barakzai dynasty.

She studied in Syria, learning Western and modern values, which would influence her future actions and beliefs. Her mother was the Syrian feminist Asma Rasmya Khanum, her father's second wife, and daughter of Sheikh Muhammad Saleh al-Fattal Effendi, of Aleppo, Muezzin of the Umayyad Mosque.

Upon her family's return to Afghanistan, Soraya Tarzi would meet and marry then prince Amanullah.

Marriage

After the Tarzis returned to Afghanistan, they were received at Court as wished by the Emir Habibullah Khan. This is where Soraya Tarzi met Habibullah's son Prince Amanullah, a sympathiser of Mahmud Tarzi's liberal ideas. Amanullah and Tarzi struck an affinity, chose to marry and married on 30 August 1913 at Qawm-i-Bagh Palace in Kabul. Amanullah's older half-brother Inayatullah Khan also married Tarzi's sister Khariya Tarzi.