Rahmah El Yunusiyyah

Rahmah el Yunusiyah (Van Ophuijsen Spelling: Rachmah el Joenoesijah, 26 October 1900 – 26 February 1969) was a Dutch East Indies and Indonesian politician, educator, and activist for women's education. Born into a prominent family of Islamic scholars, she was made to leave school in order to get married as a teenager. After a few years of marriage, el Yunusiyah obtained a divorce and returned to her education.

In 1923, she founded , the first known Islamic school (madrasa) for girls in the Indies. As the school grew and established itself, el Yunusiyah helped found three more schools for women and girls as well as a teacher training institute. An Islamic nationalist, el Yunusiyah was imprisoned by the Dutch authorities before Indonesia's independence. In 1955 she became one of the first women to be elected to the People's Consultative Assembly of independent Indonesia as a member of the Masyumi Party. She died aged 68 in 1969 in her hometown, Padang Panjang.

In 2025, el Yunusiyah was named a National Hero of Indonesia, the country's highest civilian honor, for her efforts on behalf of women's education and empowerment.

Early life El Yunusiyah was born on 26 October 1900 in Bukit Surungan, Padang Panjang, West Sumatra, Dutch East Indies. She was the youngest child of an elite Minangkabau family which belonged to the ulama; her father was a well-known qadi named Muhammad Yunis bin Imanuddin and her mother was named Rafi'ah. Although she started to get basic Islamic tutoring from her father, he died when she was only six years old. After that she began to receive an education from some of her father's former students, and learned to read and write. In 1922, her husband married two more wives, and el Yunusiyah obtained a divorce before returning to her education; they had not had any children during their marriage.

Educational activism and leadership El Yunusiyah's family had long been involved in Islamic education in West Sumatra, and in 1915 her brother Zainuddin Labay el Yunusi had founded the Dinayah School; Rahmah became a student there.

Diniyah Putri El Yunusiyah was unsatisfied with the level of Islamic education for girls in the schools they had access to, as well as the social dynamics that prevented them from fully accessing education in mixed-gender schools. She consulted with local ulema, and with the support of her brother Zainuddin and her study circle, opened a school specifically for girls in November 1923.

At first, the school did not have its own building and operated out of a mosque, where she was the main teacher. The existence of a modern school for girls was not fully accepted in the community, and she faced some hostility and criticism. El Yunusiyah, a deeply religious woman, believed that Islam demanded a central role for women and women's education.

In 1924, a permanent classroom for the school was built in a local house. El Yunusiyah also started a supplemental program for older women who had not had proper educations, although it was cut short after the 1926 Padang Panjang earthquakes destroyed the Diniyah school building. She toured widely in the Indies to raise money and a new permanent building was built and opened in 1928. The scholar Audrey Kahin calls Diniyah Putri "one of the most successful and influential of the schools for women" in pre-independence Indonesia.

Continued advocacy El Yunusiyah disdained contact with the Dutch; unlike other modernising female figures such as Kartini, she did not have European friends and in turn did not have a high profile among them. She became involved in the Persatuan Muslim Indonesia, an Indonesian nationalist movement with an Islamic character. She was sworn in in late March 1956. She was elected representing the Islam-oriented Masyumi Party, of which she had been an early supporter in West Sumatra. In late 1956 she also became an advisor to the Banteng Council under Lt. Col. Ahmad Husein. Husein's organization was a local movement against the central government; the council enjoyed broad support in West Sumatra.

In 1958, she came to support the Revolutionary Government of the Republic of Indonesia (PRRI), an anti-government movement largely based in Sumatra. Because of her support for the PRRI, el Yunusiyah lost her seat in the Assembly. The faculty of Al-Azhar awarded her the title of Syeikah, which they had never given to a woman before.