Parvin Paidar

Iranian writer and campaigner intent on combining feminism with Islam After 1979 Iranian revolution Parvin became a founder member, in London, of the influential feminist Persian language journal 'Nimeyeh Digar' - a voice to women both in the West and in Iran. She demanded that feminism move beyond a narrow focus on western experience and preoccupations. Parvin was one of those pioneering scholars who highlighted the importance of combining Islam and feminism. She published her seminal work, 'Women and the Political Process in Twentieth Century Iran' in 1995. Parvin began her career by combining work with the British Refugee Council and the World University Service. Then she went to work for Save the Children in central Asia and director of Voluntary Services Overseas in Pakistan. She continued her work in the region by serving as inter-agency co-ordinator for the Bosnia programme and then director of the UN Development Fund for Women in Afghanistan. Parvin Paidar was born in Tehran and came to Britain for higher studies. She approached her battle with cancer with the same optimism she applied to all the tasks that she had undertaken in her life.

Compiler: M. Nauman Khan