Najah al-Attar

Najah al-Attar (; born 10 January 1933) is a Syrian politician who served as the vice president of Syria from 2006 to 2024. She was the first Arab woman to have held the post. Previously, she was the Minister of Culture from 1976 to 2000.

Early life and education Attar was born on 10 January 1933 and raised in Damascus as a member of a Sunni Muslim family. Her father was among the first Arab nationalist leaders who took part in the 1925-1927 Syrian revolt against the French Mandate of Syria. She studied at the University of Damascus, graduating in 1954, and obtained a PhD in Arabic literature from the University of Edinburgh in the United Kingdom in 1958. She also received a number of certificates then in international relations and in literary and art criticism.

Career Attar is an accomplished translator and started teaching in high schools within Damascus after her return from Scotland, then worked in the Department of Translation of the Syrian Ministry of Culture. In 1976, she was appointed minister of culture,

Political alignment Although Attar was vice president and served as a long-term minister in Syria, a state largely controlled by the secular Ba'ath Party, her brother, Issam al-Attar, was the leader of the Damascus faction of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood and lived in exile in Aachen, West Germany since the 1970s, which saw a government persecution of various Islamist political movements.