Interior of the Al Quaraouiyine (or al-Qarawiyyin) Mosque and university in Fes. Photo / Shutterstock
Interior of the Al Quaraouiyine (or al-Qarawiyyin) Mosque and university in Fes. Photo / Shutterstock
The history of the world is filled with the names of men and monuments built for them. In an extract from In Her Footsteps, here are some of the remarkable unsung heroes, women history-makers, and the landmarks that celebrate them, where travellers can visit and doff theircaps.
Fatima Al-Fihri The University of Al Quaraouiyine, Fez, Morocco
If you've ever wondered how universities first came about, the answer may surprise you. It's all thanks to pioneering Muslim woman Fatima al-Fihri, who founded the world's first university along the twisting medieval alleyways of Fez in 859. While much of her story is lost in time, it's known that she emigrated to Morocco's spiritual and cultural capital from Kairouan (present-day Tunisia) with her merchant father and younger sister, Mariam. Devout and well-educated, she chose after her father died, to spend her inheritance on building a mosque and a hub of learning that would benefit her adopted city, naming it Quaraouiyine after her birthplace. At first, it offered only religious instruction, but the syllabus gradually broadened to include mathematics, science, law, philosophy, astronomy and the Arabic language. Open to scholars of all ages and religions, it created academic and cultural bonds between Europe and the Islamic world.
August alumni include Muslim historian Ibn Khaldun, Jewish philosopher Maimonides and the future Pope Sylvester II. Much later, Fatima al-Kabbaj, one of the university's first female students, who graduated in the mid-1950s, became the first woman on Morocco's Supreme Council of Religious Knowledge.
Expanded over successive dynasties until it became one of the largest mosques in Africa, today's sprawling complex isn't open to non-Muslims, but you can often get a glimpse of its courtyard – resplendent with dazzling zellij (mosaic tilework), elaborately carved stucco and ornate cedar wood – through the open doorway. Fittingly, a female Fassi architect, Aziza Chaouni, was tasked with restoring the university's historic library in 2012. It's the world's oldest working library, and accordingly one filled with precious manuscripts and priceless ancient tomes, including a 9th-century Qur'an. Al-Fihri's vision and commitment not only created what is officially the world's oldest existing, continually operating higher-educational institution, it paved the way for universities around the globe, including the first in Europe, founded in Bologna in 1088, and Harvard in 1636.
The entrance to the mosque is on Derb Boutouil; wander down the Talaa Kebira and you'll stumble across it, although only practising Muslims may enter.
Harriet Tubman Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park, Maryland Eastern Shore, USA
Harriet Tubman (1822-1913) was the best-known conductor of the Underground Railroad and one of the most important human rights activists in US history.
Harriet Tubman, the best-known conductor of the Underground Railroad and one of the most important activists in US history. Illustration / Lauren Crow
Not only did she lead nearly 70 enslaved people to freedom, she also served as a nurse, and eventually a spy, for the Union Army during the Civil War. In 1863 she became the first woman to lead a Civil War armed assault, a raid on plantations along the Combahee River that freed 750 people from slavery. After the war, Tubman became involved in the fight for women's suffrage and established a home for the elderly.
A brick home at Harriett Tubman National Historical Park.
Her heroism still inspires, and those wishing to delve into her legacy will find eastern Maryland – where she was born, escaped from slavery and rescued many – a treasure trove. To learn more about her courageous accomplishments, head to Church Creek's Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historic Park. The site has exhibits about her life and is the first stop on the Harriet Tubman Byway, a 125-mile driving tour of 36 sites related to Tubman's work and the Underground Railroad.
The historical park is only two hours' drive from Washington, DC; combine your visit with a day at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Alice Paul Belmont-Paul House, Washington, DC, USA
"There will never be a new world order until women are a part of it".
What's now known as the Belmont-Paul House was the final headquarters of the National Woman's Party (NWP), established in 1916 by Alice Paul (1885-1977).
Alice Paul, who established the National Woman's Party (NWP) had a message for the US president that is as relevant, sadly, now as it was then. Illustration / Lauren Crow
Paul was frustrated with the slow tactics of the National American Woman Suffrage Association and wanted to push harder for a constitutional amendment allowing women the right to vote. Her NWP was a more radical organisation, and kept detailed records on members of Congress for more effective lobbying. Alice Paul, Lucy Burns, Dorothy Day and other members were determined to convince President Woodrow Wilson to back the proposed amendment.
They marched in front of the White House with banners, the first time any group had dared picket the President's home. Among the objects you can see here: Elizabeth Cady Stanton's chair, Susan B Anthony's desk and the "Congressional Card File/Deadly Political Index", a collection of detailed notes from meetings the NWP had with members of Congress. This kind of activist lobbying seems commonplace today, but it was an unheard-of tactic back then.
The Belmont-Paul House is next to the Hart Senate Office Building.
Truganini Truganini Lookout, Bruny Island, Tasmania, Australia
A Palawa woman from the first-contact generation, Truganini (1812–1876) grew up in her traditional culture on Bruny Island, Tasmania. At this time there were six times as many white men as white women in the colony, and many settlers engaged in violence and rape against Aboriginal women and children. This violence is one of the key triggers historians cite for the Black War, which raged in Tasmania between 1824 and 1831.
A casualty of the times, Truganini's mother, uncle and fiance were all killed by settlers, her sisters, Lowhenunhue and Maggerleede, were enslaved by sealers, and she was raped. Yet despite her traumas, during 1830–35 Truganini acted as an ambassador for her people when she travelled with George Augustus Robinson and assisted his efforts to broker peace. She later went with him to Victoria but there joined a group of indigenous guerrilla fighters and was implicated in the murder of settlers. She and the other surviving Aboriginals eventually were forcibly moved into a settlement camp.
Near her birthplace on Bruny Island, tourists can visit the Truganini Lookout to experience something of her ancestral land. Photo / Andrew Balcombe/Shutterstock
Truganini plays a symbolic role in Australian history, as she's been painted as the melancholy "last of her race" and then reclaimed as a strong and defiant symbol of survival for the Tasmanian Aboriginal community. Before her death in 1876, Truganini asked to have her ashes scattered in D'Entrecasteaux Channel, yet the Royal Society of
Tasmania displayed her skeleton at Hobart's Tasmanian Museum. Finally in 1976 her wishes were honoured with cremation, and museums around the world are slowly repatriating similar remains. It's one small consolation that her legacy has led to revisiting the practices she opposed.
Near her birthplace on Bruny Island, you can visit the Truganini Lookout to experience something of her ancestral land.
Zaha Hadid Heydar Aliyev Centre, Baku, Azerbaijan
Rising from the ground in a series of mesmerising folds, the shape-shifting Heydar Aliyev Centre in Baku opened in 2012 and quickly became recognised as one of the world's most beautiful buildings. Designed by Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid (1950–2016), it sits in a large plaza and houses three auditoriums, a museum, a library and an exhibition centre. Its avant-garde design is typical of Hadid, a groundbreaking visual artist, whose style defies convention or easy categorisation. Her innovative creations ignore the traditional geometry of construction and instead, rely on fluid, organic curves that offer multiple perspectives. The Heydar Aliyev Centre is the best-known example of her style and, walking around its undulating exterior, visitors appreciate the dynamic, sinuous, seamless form.
The Heydar Aliyev Center in Baku, designed by Iraqi-British architect Zaha Hadid. Photo / Shutterstock
Famous for her bold architectural statements, Hadid was hailed as one of the foremost architects of her generation. Yet even as she became increasingly well-known she stated, 'I will never give myself the luxury of thinking, "I've made it."' In a male-dominated profession, she felt her position to be tenuous: "As a woman in architecture, you're always an outsider." The first woman to receive the Pritzker Architecture Prize, architecture's Nobel, she was also twice awarded the Stirling Prize, the UK's most prestigious architectural award, and is the only woman to have been awarded the Royal Gold Medal from the Royal Institute of British Architects. Today, her firm continues to complete her innovative projects posthumously.
Take the red subway line to Nariman Narimanov station, from where the centre is a 15-minute walk.
