Zeenat Karzai

Zeenat Quraishi Karzai (born 1970) is the wife of former President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai and was the First Lady of Afghanistan from 2001 to 2014. Originally from the city of Kandahar, she moved to Kabul, where she lived at the Arg (the Presidential palace) with her husband and their four children.

Zeenat Karzai
Zeenat Karzai in 2005
First Lady of Afghanistan
In role 22 December 2001 – 29 September 2014
President	Hamid Karzai
Preceded by	Vacant
Succeeded by	Rula Ghani
Personal details
Born	Zeenat Quraishi 1970 (age 53–54)
Nationality	Afghan
Spouse	Hamid Karzai ​ (m. 1999)​
Children	4
Alma mater	Kabul University
Religion	Sunni Islam

Education and career

Born in 1970 and raised in Kandahar, Afghanistan, the daughter of a civil servant, Zenat Quraishi moved to Kabul after high school to attend Kabul University.

She was a gynaecologist by profession and worked in hospitals treating Afghan refugees in Pakistan before she married Hamid Karzai.

Family

She is an ethnic Pashtun. Zeenat belongs to the Quraish family line and her husband Karzai is from the Popalzai tribe.

Zeenat Karzai with then U.S. First Lady Laura Bush talking with women.

In 1993, she and her family escaped from the civil war to neighboring Quetta in Balochistan, Pakistan.

She is a distant relative of Hamid Karzai.

They have one son and three daughters.

For a president who has been credited for helping the women of Afghanistan regain their civil rights, Karzai has been criticized for being overly conservative with his own spouse. Many have accused Karzai of keeping the first lady out of the media’s reach over fears of criticism from conservative mullahs and religious leaders.

See also

• Rula Ghani
• Queens of Afghanistan