 Rokeya Sakhawat Hussain, (1880 - December 9, 1932) was a prolific writer and a social worker in undivided Bengal in the early 20th century. She is most famous for her efforts on behalf of gender equality and other social issues. She established the first school aimed primarily at Muslim girls, which still exists today. She was a notable Muslim feminist.</p> <p>Roquia Khatun was born in 1880 in the village of Pairabondh, Rangpur, in what was then the British Indian Empire and is now Bangladesh. Her father, Jahiruddin Muhammad Abu Ali Haidar Saber, was a highly educated zamindar (landlord). Roquia had two sisters, Karimunnesa Khatun and Humayra Khatun; and three brothers, one of whom died in childhood. Roquia's eldest brother Ibrahim, and her immediate elder sister Karimunnesa, both had great influence on her life. Karimunnesa wanted to study Bangla, the language of the majority in Bengal. The family disliked this because many upper class Muslims of the time preferred to use Arabic and Persian as the media of education, instead of their native language, Bangla. Ibrahim taught English and Bangla to Roquia and Karimunnesa; both sisters became authors. |
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 Begum Sufia Kamal (June 20, 1911 - November 20, 1999) was a poet, writer, organizer, feminist and activist from Bangladesh. She was born to a Muslim family in Barisal, Bangladesh. She is one of the most widely recognized cultural personalities in Bangladesh. When she died in 1999, she was buried with full state honors, the first woman in Bangladesh to receive this honor.
Early life - Sufia Kamal was born in Shaestabad, daughter of a distinguished zamindar family, in Barisal. During her childhood, women's education was prohibited and she could not afford to get academic education. But she learnt Bangla, Hindi, English, Urdu, Arabic, Kurdish and Persian language from her house tutors. In 1918, she went to Kolkata with her mother where she came to meet with Begum Rokeya. She was first married at the age of 11 to her cousin Syed Nehal Hossain, then a law student. They had a daughter, Amena Kahnar, and Mr. Hossain died in 1932. Five years later, Ms. Kamal married Kamaluddin Ahmed. |
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 Jahanara Imam (May 3, 1929 - June 26, 1994) was a Bangladeshi writer and political activist. She is most widely remembered for her endeavour to bring war criminals of the Bangladesh Liberation War to trial. She was popularly known as "Shaheed Janani"(Mother of Martyrs).
Jahanara Imam was born in a progressive Muslim family in Murshidabad, in West Bengal, India. She was the eldest daughter in a family of three brothers and four sisters. Her father Syed Abdul Ali was a Civil Servant in the Bengal Civil Service and she lived in many different parts of Bengal - wherever her father was posted. She had a very liberal upbringing and received a liberal education. She was a very spirited person, exceptionally so among her contemporaries, right from her childhood. Her father recognized this and made sure that she received the highest possible education. Her mother Hamida Ali, who spent her entire life looking after her family and bringing up her children, also had high ambitions for her daughter. At that time there were lots of social pressure against Muslim women’s higher studies but she was determined that Jahanara's education would not be constrained by social pressure. Her parents' ambitions and their belief in education for women left a deep impression throughout Jahanara Imam's life. |
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 Nurjahan Begum was born on June 4, 1925, as Nurun Nahar. Her father, renowned journalist and editor of the monthly Shawgat, Mohammad Nasiruddin, lived in Kolkata, while she, "Nuri", lived with her mother, Fatema Begum, in Chalitatoli. After an accident in which Nuri fell into a pond in the village at the age of four, her father quickly had her move to Kolkata with her mother, thinking his daughter would be far safer there.
""When I came to Kolkata," reminisces Nurjahan Begum, "my father, to the utter dismay of my mother, had my nose-pin cut off and my hair sheared into a "China bob' cut!"
Mohammad Nasiruddin was a progressive man and he wanted his daughter to be the same, easily fitting into Kolkata society and making something of herself with a good, well-rounded education. Little Nuri was taught nursery rhymes, poems and surahs by her mother, and the Bangla, Arabic and English alphabet by both her parents. Her father would bring home books and magazines for Nuri to go through and look at pictures. Slowly, she grew an interest in books. Even before she had learnt to read properly, Nuri began to file her father's collection of local and foreign publications just by looking at the pictures. Delighted by her keen intelligence, Nuri's grandmother, Nurjahan, decided to name her granddaughter after herself, and, from then on, she became Nurjahan Begum. |
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 Taramon Bibi is the one of the two decorated female freedom fighters in Bangladesh, and the only one of them to have engaged in direct combat. She fought for the Mukti Bahini (Liberation Army) which was a guerilla force that fought against the Pakistan military in during Bangladesh War of Independence in 1971.
She fought in her village home in Shankar Madhabpur, Kurigram District. She was in Sector 11 under the leadership of Sector commander Abu Taher. After the war, she was awarded honored with the title Bir Protik (Symbol of Valor) by the Bangladesh government. But her whereabouts were unknown and the award was never handed over to her. She herself remained unaware of this until 1995, when a researcher from Mymensingh discovered her. She was finally given her award by the Prime Minister of Bangladesh on December 19, 1995. |
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Pioneering Women 
