Syeda Razia Faiz (Bengali: সৈয়দা রাজিয়া ফয়েজ; 18 April 1936 – 15 November 2013) was a Bangladeshi politician. She served as a member of the National Assembly of Pakistan in the 1960s. In 1979, she was the first woman to be elected in the history of Bangladesh as a member of the Parliament of Bangladesh, alongside 299 male members (out of 300 elected members of parliament).[1][2]
Faiz was born on 18 April 1936 into a Bengali Muslim family of Syeds from the village of Talibpur in Murshidabad. Her father, Syed Badrudduja, was a former mayor of Kolkata and a member of the Bengal Legislative Assembly and India's Lok Sabha.[1] Through her paternal grandfather Syed Abdul Ghafur, she was a descendant of Ali, the fourth Caliph of Islam.
Meanwhile, her sister Syeda Sakina Islam, was among the 30 nominated/selected members of the reserved women seats (a quota for the winning party which holds the parliamentary majority) of the same national parliament.[3]
She was elected to Pakistan National Assembly in the 1960s under President Ayub Khan,[4] representing the country on a number of delegations overseas.[3] During the Bangladesh Liberation War she was also part of the Pakistani delegation to the United Nations.[4] She was placed under house arrest in Bangladesh after its independence.[4]
In 1979, Faiz was elected from the former constituency of Abdus Sabur Khan to Bangladesh's Parliament.[4] She was the first female elected member of parliament in Bangladesh.[3] In 1989, she was appointed as the minister for women and social welfare[1] Later, she served as the vice president of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party until her death.[5]
Faiz was married to Mohammad Abul Faiz, the former chairman of Petrobangla. They had a daughter, Fawzia Alam, and two sons, Osman Ershad Faiz and Aman Ashraf Faiz.[1] She died on 15 November 2013.[5]