10 Most Amazing And Inspiring Refugees In History

10. Nawal El Saadawi

Feminism is not something often associated with the Islamic world, as public conversation focuses in on modesty codes and restrictive laws surrounding womens' rights, but in fact one of the most influential feminists of the past century was a Muslim from Egypt. 

Nawal El Saadawi is a feminist speaker, activist and academic who was born in Egypt in 1931. Her father had criticised British rule during the 1919 Egyptian revolution and found himself exiled to a small village in the Nile Delta for his troubles. El Saadawi's father was a progressive minded man who encouraged her to value herself and care for others. 

She would go on to examine the relationship between democracy, women and gender attitudes in Islam and her book Women and Sex was a foundational text for second wave feminism. However it also antagonised Egypt's dictatorial government who imprisoned her for years and eventually exiled her. 

El Saadawi ended up becoming a respected academic in America where she has been an outspoken activist against the female genital mutilation which still takes place in many Islamic countries, as well as an enlightening speaker on women's relationship with Islam.