Haleh Afshar, Baroness Afshar

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Haleh Afshar, Baroness Afshar, OBE, FAcSS (Persian: هاله افشار; ‎21 May 1944 – 12 May 2022)[1] was a British life peer in the House of Lords. She had a life-long interest in women's rights and Islamic law. She was a professor at the University of York and she wrote over a dozen scholarly books.

The Baroness Afshar
Official portrait, 2019
Member of the House of Lords
Lord Temporal
In office
13 December 2007 – 12 May 2022
Life peerage
Personal details
Born
Haleh Afshar

(1944-05-21)21 May 1944
Tehran, Imperial State of Iran
Died12 May 2022(2022-05-12) (aged 77)
Heslington, England
NationalityBritish
Spouse
Maurice Dodson
(m. 1974)
Alma mater

Life and career

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Haleh Afshar was the eldest of four children born to Hassan Afshar and Pouran Khabir. She was born on 21 May 1944 in Tehran.[2] Her father was at one point a government minister and he was a professor of law at Tehran University and her mother successfully campaigned for women to gain the vote.[3] She went first to the Jeanne d’Arc school in Tehran until at 14 she was boarding in Solihull to attend school there. She joined the new University of York after completing her A-levels in Brighton and she gained her first degree in 1967 in Social Sciences. Five years later she gained a diploma from the University of Strasbourg before completing a doctorate at the University of Cambridge in 1974 in Land Economy. She then returned to work in Iran's land reform ministry. She also worked as a journalist and her research led her to understand that many Iranian women did not understand their Islamic rights.[3] Her journalism led her into exile as an article about the royal family was not well received. In 1976 she was lecturing at the University of Bradford.[3]

Afshar became a professor of politics and women's studies at the University of York, and a visiting professor of Islamic law at the Faculté internationale de droit comparé (international faculty of comparative law) at Robert Schuman University in Strasbourg, France. Afshar served on the British Council and the United Nations Association, of which she was honorary president of international services. She was appointed to the board of the Women's National Commission in September 2008. She served as the chair for the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies. Afshar was a founding member of the Muslim Women's Network. She served on the Home Office's working groups, on "engaging with women" and "preventing extremism together".

She was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the 2005 Birthday Honours.[4][5] for services to equal opportunities. On 18 October 2007 it was announced that she would be made a baroness and join the House of Lords as a cross-bench life peer. She was introduced into the House of Lords on 11 December 2007, as Baroness Afshar, of Heslington in the County of North Yorkshire.[6]

In March 2009, she was named as one of the twenty most successful Muslim women in the UK on the Muslim Women Power List 2009. The list was a collaboration between the Equality and Human Rights Commission, Emel Magazine and The Times, to celebrate the achievements of Muslim women in the UK.[7][8]

In April 2009, she was appointed an academician of the Academy of Social Sciences.[9]

Afshar died from kidney failure at her home in Heslington on 12 May 2022 at the age of 77.[2]

Honours

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In 2011, Afshar received an honorary doctorate from the University of Essex.[10]

In January 2013, Afshar was nominated for the Services to Education award at the British Muslim Awards.[11]

In 2017, Afshar received an honorary doctorate from the University of Bradford.[12]

Works

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Afshar wrote about Iran and Iranian politics both for academia and the media. Her books include Islam and Feminisms: An Iranian Case Study (Macmillan, 1998), and Islam and the Post Revolutionary State in Iran (Macmillan, 1994). She edited thirteen books on women and development.

  • Afshar, Haleh (1985). Women, work, and ideology in the Third World. London New York: Tavistock Publications. ISBN 9780422797108.
  • Afshar, Haleh (1985). Iran, a revolution in turmoil. Albany: State University of New York Press. ISBN 9780887061264.
  • Afshar, Haleh (1987). Women, state, and ideology: studies from Africa and Asia. Albany: State University of New York Press. ISBN 9780887063947.
  • Afshar, Haleh; Agarwal, Bina (1989). Women, poverty and ideology in Asia: contradictory pressures, uneasy resolutions. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire England: Macmillan. ISBN 9780333444092.
  • Afshar, Haleh (1991). Women, development, and survival in the Third World. London New York: Longman. ISBN 9780582034945.
  • Afshar, Haleh (1993). Women in the Middle East: perceptions, realities and struggles for liberation. Basingstoke: Macmillan. ISBN 9780333575659.
  • Afshar, Haleh; Maynard, Mary (1994). The dynamics of "race" and gender: some feminist interventions. London Bristol, PA: Taylor & Francis. ISBN 9780748402113.
  • Afshar, Haleh (1996). Women and politics in the Third World. London New York: Routledge. ISBN 9780415138536.
  • Afshar, Haleh (1998). Women and empowerment : illustrations from the Third World. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 9780333719732.
  • Afshar, Haleh (1998). Islam and feminisms: an Iranian case-study. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 9780312214326.
  • Afshar, Haleh; Barrientos, Stephanie (1999). Women, globalization and fragmentation in the developing world. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 9780312216597.

References

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  1. ^ Veitch, Janet (19 May 2022). "Lady Afshar obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 June 2022.
  2. ^ a b Fathi, Nazila (24 June 2022). "Haleh Afshar, Who Fought for Rights of Muslim Women, Dies at 77". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 25 June 2022.
  3. ^ a b c "Lady Afshar obituary". The Guardian. 19 May 2022. Retrieved 26 August 2022.
  4. ^ "No. 57665". The London Gazette (Supplement). 11 June 2005. p. 9.
  5. ^ "Queen's Birthday Honours List". 17 June 2005. Retrieved 10 March 2008.
  6. ^ "No. 58543". The London Gazette. 17 December 2007. p. 18246.
  7. ^ The Muslim Women Power List 2009[permanent dead link]
  8. ^ "Muslim Women Power List". The Guardian. 25 March 2009. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 14 May 2022.
  9. ^ Afshar named Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences Archived 26 April 2009 at the Wayback Machine
  10. ^ "University of Essex Calendar". Archived from the original on 7 October 2012.
  11. ^ "Winners honoured at British Muslim Awards". Asian Image. 31 January 2013. Retrieved 1 November 2015.
  12. ^ "University honours seven at graduations". 17 July 2017.
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