My friend Freda Hussain, who has died aged 69 of cancer, was a science teacher and later headteacher who was the first Muslim woman to become high sheriff of Leicestershire. She contributed to community life via Leicester University Council, an NHS Trust and the YMCA. She had a luminous and engaging personality. She was small in size but large in personality and had a huge capacity for generous friendship, across and beyond social and faith divisions.
The eldest daughter of Farkhanda Rashid, an English teacher, and Ahmed Rashid, a civil servant, she was born in the Pakistani Punjab and attended the Convent of Jesus and Mary school in Lahore. The family emigrated to the UK when she was 14.
After gaining a zoology degree at Manchester University she took her first teaching post at Altrincham girls’ grammar school and then moved to Washington DC, where she married Asaf Hussain. She worked as an office manager in a fashion store for five years. When the family returned to the UK in 1975, she resumed her career, first becoming a science teacher at Audenshaw boys’ grammar school, then moving to Leicester in 1979 to become head of physics at Sir Jonathan North community college. Here she inspired many girls to take science at A-level.
In 1989 she was appointed vice-principal, and then in 1991 principal of Moat community college. She was described by the Ofsted inspectorate as an “inspirational and outstanding leader.” She set up an Educational Action zone so that the whole inner-city community of schools could benefit. Resolving knotty problems from Muslim girls’ dress to community relations, she used the school name as an acronym: Maximising Our Achievements Together.
In 2004 she was appointed high sheriff of Leicestershire. She worked with judges, the probation service and police to develop a citizenship module for students at key stage 4 on the criminal justice system, which is still used by youth offending teams.
Freda was totally committed to interfaith and community dialogue and activity, and in 1984 wrote a book, Muslim Women, in which she advocated that women should not accept the male translations of the Qur’an, but should learn Arabic and translate it for themselves.
When she became high sheriff, she appointed a Muslim chaplain, with me as her Christian chaplain. Generally, it is unusual for a Muslim woman to have an unsegregated Muslim funeral in a mosque and memorial service in the cathedral. She had both. “We worship the same God,” she said.
She is survived by Asaf, her daughter, Nadia, granddaughter, Sofia, and two brothers and two sisters.
