Ziauddin Yousafzai

ضياء الدين يوسفزي

Ziauddin Yousafzai (born 20 April 1969) is a Pakistani education activist who founded and ran a chain of low-cost private schools in Swat open to girls, and who became known worldwide as the father of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai, whom he encouraged to speak out for girls' education against the Pakistani Taliban. He is a co-founder of the Malala Fund and the author of Let Her Fly (2018).

Depth

At a glance

Roles
teacher · activist
Region
South Asia · al-Andalus & Europe
Identifiers
Wikidata
Review

Life in time

18751900192519501975200020252050
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-Halim Mahmud

Place in the story

    Unknown (unknown)

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

    Malala's father

    Yousafzai became known worldwide as the father of Malala Yousafzai, the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize laureate: he encouraged his daughter from childhood to speak out for girls' right to education against the Pakistani Taliban's ban, and stood beside her after the 2012 attempt on her life. He is a co-founder and board member of the Malala Fund, the author of the memoir Let Her Fly (2018), and the recipient of honorary doctorates from Canadian universities for his work for girls' education. 1 2

    Religion

    His faith is recorded as unknown, in the generic-only configuration: Wikidata's religion value is Islam in general, naming no school; the English article's categories file him under "Pakistani Sunni Muslims", a category filing, which never counts; and no text in the English, Arabic or Urdu edition names a school, order or affiliation for him. That his father was a theology teacher and mosque imam is his father's record and family background, not an attestation of the son's school, and his own public practice and his defence of girls' education name no school either. Where no source names a school, the value stays unknown, unflagged. 1 3 2 4

    Sources

    • The defined source entities cited above, recorded in data/source/.
    • Revisions of this article must be dated, and must name the source that changed each fact.

    Connections

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    Parent of
    Malala Yousafzai

    People and things also explored

    Malala Yousafzai

    Sources

    1. Ziauddin Yousafzai — English Wikipedia
    2. Ziauddin Yousafzai — Urdu Wikipedia
    3. Ziauddin Yousafzai — Arabic Wikipedia
    4. Ziauddin Yousafzai — Wikidata Q8071389
    Cite this page

    islam.museum contributors. “Ziauddin Yousafzai”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/person/ziauddin-yousafzai/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-27.

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    People

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    Related

    Malala Yousafzai

    Pakistani girls'-education activist and film and television producer, the youngest Nobel Prize laureate in history. She began blogging for BBC Urdu under a pseudonym at eleven, survived a Taliban assassination attempt in 2012, then co-founded the Malala Fund, co-authored 'I Am Malala', and received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 at seventeen.