Hekmat Abu Zeid became the first female Arab minister when she was appointed by late President Gamal Abdel Nasser as the minister of social affairs in 1962.She received the prestigious Lenin Peace Prize in 1970.

She was born in Asyut in 1922 to an illiterate mother and an employee of the Egyptian State Railways. She received a bachelor of history from Fuad I University (Cairo University now) in 1940, followed by a master’s in arts in education and then a PhD in educational psychology from the University of London in 1957.She joined the Women’s College and then became a professor at Cairo University.

Abu Zeif was on the National Congress of Popular Forces committee when she disagreed with Nasser over the Charter of National Action. Nasser then decided to appoint her as minister of social affairs in Ali Saber’s cabinet in 1962 and served in her position until 1965. She worked on developing access to education and improving the state of female workers and peasants as well as other women’s rights issues, especially women in the economy. She was the face of the feminist movement during this era and spearheaded an initiative forcing men to divorce women in courts and not only orally.

Abu Zeid moved to Libya in 1974, however, after Nasser passed away. There, she headed an organization calling for the overthrow of late President Anwar El Sadat’s government. In return, Sadat accused her of high treason, terrorism and spying and revoked her nationality, a decision later revoked through a court case that was resolved in 1991. Abu Zeid returned to Egypt in 1992 and passed away in Cairo in 2011.

Abu Zeid was nicknamed The Merciful Heart of the Revolution.