known mostly as Queen Soraya was the Queen consort of Afghanistan in the early 20th century and the wife of King Amanullah Khan and a champion for women's rights and education in Afghanistan. Queen Soraya was the first queen of Afghanistan to take a public role in her country. Queen Soraya was education minister in her husband's government and opened the first school for girls in Kabul. She sent 15 young women to Turkey for higher education in 1928. Soraya was very instrumental in enforcing change for women and publicly exhorted them to be active participants in nation building and to follow her example of modernization and education. She also founded the first magazine for women called Ershad-I-Niswan (Guidance for Women). After her husband's abdication from the Afghan throne over conservative rebellions against their reforms, Soraya lived in Italy until her death, when she was returned to Afghanistan to be buried.