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Feryal Clark

فيريال كلارك

Malatya (Melitene)

British Labour Party politician, born in Malatya, Turkey, in 1979 to Kurdish parents, who moved to London at the age of eight. She studied at the University of Exeter and worked in the NHS, served as a Hackney councillor and deputy mayor of Hackney, was elected MP for Enfield North in 2019 as Labour's first Kurdish MP, and served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for AI and Digital Government (2024–2025).

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The Colonial Era · The Contemporary Era · The Modern Era Contemporaries: Abbas-Ali Amid Zanjani · Abbas Kiarostami · Abd al-Aziz al-Ghumari · Abd al-Fattah Abu Ghudda · Abd al-Rahman Badawi

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    Roles are dated and sourced; the museum describes the act and attributes the judgement.

    Summary

    Feryal Demirci Clark is a British Labour Party politician, born in Malatya, Turkey, on 6 January 1979. She has been Member of Parliament for Enfield North since 2019. 1 2

    She served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for AI and Digital Government from July 2024 to September 2025. 1

    Early life and education

    Feryal Demirci was born in Malatya to Kurdish Alevi parents with roots in Kepez, Malatya Province, and moved to London at the age of eight. 1

    She studied biomedical science and then took a master's degree in bioinformatics at the University of Exeter, and worked in NHS pathology for six years. 1

    Local government

    She was elected in 2006 as a councillor for Brownswood ward in the London Borough of Hackney, represented Hoxton East and Shoreditch ward from 2014, and rose to become deputy mayor of Hackney and cabinet member for health, social care, leisure and parks. As a councillor she promoted cycling in the borough. 1

    She was seventh on Labour's London-wide list for the 2016 London Assembly election but was not elected. 1

    Parliamentary career

    At the 2019 general election she was elected MP for Enfield North with 51.8 per cent of the vote and a majority of 6,492. She became Labour's first ever Kurdish MP, and made her maiden speech in a Commons debate on health and social care. 1

    She was appointed Shadow Minister for Primary Care and Patient Safety in November 2021, then Shadow Minister for Health in September 2023. She was re-elected in 2024 with an increased majority of 12,736, and after the election was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for AI and Digital Government. 1

    Positions and criticism

    This section sets out positions as reported in the sources; it is not a verdict by the museum. In January 2022 Clark called on the UK government to recognise the Armenian genocide, saying she was born in south-east Turkey and grew up hearing stories about the horrors faced by the Armenian people in that region. 1

    Clark endorsed Yvette Cooper in the 2015 Labour leadership election and Lisa Nandy in 2020, and is a supporter of Labour Friends of Israel, according to the article. 1

    Reach

    Her public significance, as the article presents it, lies in being Labour's first Kurdish MP, and in her path from NHS laboratory work and Hackney local government to a ministerial office for digital government and artificial intelligence. 1

    Sources

    • The defined source entities cited above, recorded in data/source/.

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    Malatya (Melitene)

    People and things also explored

    The Fall and Demolition of Malatya, 133· Al-Mansur's Rebuilding of Malatya· Rukn al-Din takes Malatya from his brother — and Erzurum· Turgut Özal· The Jazira· Taranda (Taranta)· Malatya (Melitene)

    Sources

    1. Feryal Clark — English Wikipedia
    2. Feryal Clark — Wikidata Q75621766
    Cite this page

    islam.museum contributors. “Feryal Clark”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/person/feryal-clark/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-25.

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    The Fall and Demolition of Malatya, 133

    In al-Baladhuri from al-Waqidi: in year 133 Constantine the tyrant advanced deliberately on Malatya — Kamkh then being Muslim-held under a Sulami — and Kamkh's people sent the appeal to Malatya's, who rode out with two hundred horse and were beaten by the Roman cavalry; the Roman camped on Malatya and besieged those inside — the Jazira then in turmoil, its governor Musa ibn Ka'b at Harran, the messenger they sent him unable to relieve them — and when Constantine heard of it he told them: 'people of Malatya, I came only knowing your state and your sultan's distraction from you — come down on aman, evacuate the city for me to demolish, and I depart from you'; they refused, so he set mangonels on it, and when affliction ground them down and the siege hardened they asked him for sureties, which he gave; they prepared to march, loaded what they could, threw much of the weight into wells and caches, and went out — the Romans formed two files from the city gate to the end of their line with drawn swords held tip to tip like a bridge's arch, then escorted them to safety, whence they dispersed through the Jazira; the Romans demolished Malatya leaving but a tower they had partly wrecked, and demolished the fortress of Qaludhiya.