✍️ By: Hamia Naderi
Kabul University, Afghanistan’s first academic institution, was founded in 1932 — but it took over two decades before a woman joined its faculty.
That trailblazer was Fatema Seraj Tarzi, a descendant of King Habibullah Khan. In 1959, she became the first female professor at Kabul University, teaching in the Faculty of Language and Literature.
Born in 1932, the same year Kabul University was established, Fatema was the daughter of Asadullah Seraj, brother of King Amanullah Khan. She completed her schooling at Malalai High School in Kabul in 1949. Soon after, her father was appointed ambassador to Turkey, and the family moved to Ankara.
In Ankara, Fatema learned Turkish and enrolled at the Faculty of Eastern Classical Languages at Ankara University. She earned a master’s degree in literary history in 1956. A year later, she married Abdullah Yahya Tarzi, a descendant of Mahmud Tarzi’s brother, and they returned to Kabul.
In 1959, she began teaching at Kabul University as a lecturer and deputy instructor, where she was known for being serious and strict with students. She taught until 1973, when her husband was appointed deputy ambassador to Italy, and she moved with him to Rome.
After returning to Afghanistan, political upheaval and the 1973 coup discouraged her from resuming her academic career. In 1994, she emigrated to the United States, where she lived until her death in Virginia on January 11, 2011.
Fatema Seraj Tarzi remains a pioneer for Afghan women in academia, breaking barriers at a time when women’s presence in public life was rare and contested.
