{
 "id": "person/elif-shafak",
 "class": "person",
 "slug": "elif-shafak",
 "label": {
  "ar": "ألف شفق",
  "en": "Elif Shafak",
  "ur": "ایلِف شفق"
 },
 "summary": {
  "ar": "ألف شفق ⁦(وُلدت في ٢٥ تشرين الأول ١٩٧١ في ستراسبورغ)⁩ روائية تركية بريطانية وعالمة سياسة، من أشهر رواياتها «قواعد العشق الأربعون» ⁦(٢٠٠٩)⁩ التي تدور حول جلال الدين الرومي وشمس التبريزي، و«لقيطة إسطنبول» و«ثلاث بنات لحواء» و«ثمة أنهار في السماء»؛ حوكمت في تركيا سنة ٢٠٠٦ بتهمة إهانة الهوية التركية وبُرّئت، وتعيش في لندن منذ ٢٠١٣، وتولت رئاسة الجمعية الملكية للأدب سنة ٢٠٢٥.",
  "en": "Elif Shafak (born 25 October 1971 in Strasbourg) is a Turkish-British novelist and political scientist, best known for The Forty Rules of Love (2009), a novel of Rumi and Shams of Tabriz, and for The Bastard of Istanbul, Three Daughters of Eve and There Are Rivers in the Sky; prosecuted in Turkey in 2006 for 'insulting Turkishness' and acquitted, she has lived in London since 2013 and became president of the Royal Society of Literature in 2025.",
  "ur": "ایلِف شفق ⁦(پیدائش 25 اکتوبر 1971، اسٹراسبرگ)⁩ ترک نژاد برطانوی ناول نگار و سیاسیات دان ہیں؛ ان کے معروف ناولوں میں «قواعد العشق الأربعون»، «لقیطۂ استنبول» اور «حوّا کی تین بیٹیاں» شامل ہیں؛ 2006 میں ترکی میں مقدمہ چل کر بری ہوئیں، 2013 سے لندن میں مقیم ہیں، اور 2025 میں رائل سوسائٹی آف لٹریچر کی صدر بنیں۔"
 },
 "stub": false,
 "wings": [
  "people",
  "living"
 ],
 "regions": [
  "anatolia-balkans",
  "andalus-europe"
 ],
 "periods": [],
 "tags": [],
 "aliases": [],
 "themes": [],
 "span": {
  "earliest": 1971.8124944386263,
  "latest": 1971.8152323456018
 },
 "display": {
  "start": {
   "edtf": "1971-10-25",
   "hijri": "1391",
   "calendar": "gregorian",
   "precision": "day",
   "status": "historical",
   "derived": true,
   "note": "Born 25 October 1971 in Strasbourg, attested by the English and Arabic articles and by Wikidata's birth statement. The hijri year is a tabular derived conversion of the Gregorian date, which is why derived is true; the date falls inside 1391 AH.",
   "sources": [
    "source/wikipedia-elif-shafak-en",
    "source/wikipedia-elif-shafak-ar",
    "source/wikidata-elif-shafak"
   ]
  }
 },
 "data": {
  "names": [
   {
    "value": "Elif Shafak",
    "kind": "full"
   },
   {
    "value": "Elif Şafak",
    "kind": "latinized"
   },
   {
    "value": "Elif Bilgin",
    "kind": "alternate"
   }
  ],
  "gender": "female",
  "roles": [
   "writer",
   "teacher"
  ],
  "born": {
   "edtf": "1971-10-25",
   "hijri": "1391",
   "calendar": "gregorian",
   "precision": "day",
   "status": "historical",
   "derived": true,
   "note": "Born 25 October 1971 in Strasbourg, attested by the English and Arabic articles and by Wikidata's birth statement. The hijri year is a tabular derived conversion of the Gregorian date, which is why derived is true; the date falls inside 1391 AH.",
   "sources": [
    "source/wikipedia-elif-shafak-en",
    "source/wikipedia-elif-shafak-ar",
    "source/wikidata-elif-shafak"
   ]
  },
  "faith": [
   {
    "value": "unknown",
    "basis": "unknown",
    "note": "No text read attests a religious affiliation for Elif Shafak herself, and her Wikidata item carries no religion statement. Sufism is a central theme of her fiction, above all The Forty Rules of Love, but a novelist's subject matter is her material, not her attested affiliation; no text read names an initiation, a practice in a living Sufi tradition, or a school for Shafak herself. The value is therefore unknown.",
    "sources": [
     "source/wikipedia-elif-shafak-en",
     "source/wikipedia-elif-shafak-ar",
     "source/wikidata-elif-shafak"
    ]
   }
  ],
  "external_ids": {
   "wikidata": "Q270739"
  },
  "sources": [
   "source/wikipedia-elif-shafak-en",
   "source/wikipedia-elif-shafak-ar",
   "source/wikidata-elif-shafak"
  ],
  "provenance": {
   "layer": "own-research",
   "source": "English Wikipedia article 'Elif Shafak' revision 1382621438 of 29 October 2026; Arabic Wikipedia article 'ألف شفق' revision 74506274 of 5 May 2026; Wikidata item Q270739 revision 2557865899 of 17 October 2026 (all retrieved live in-session on 2 November 2026 via the MediaWiki API; the Wikidata revision re-asserted identical on a second query, and the item carries no religion statement at all). Strasbourg has no place record on main, so no born_in edge is written. No record or draft stub for her existed on main (checked against origin/main on 2 November 2026 by slug, name fragments and QID). The queue's 1971 birth year is correct.",
   "generated_by": "Muse (Muse Spark 1.3)",
   "run": "modern-figures-wave-182o2"
  },
  "status": {
   "review": "published"
  }
 },
 "prose": {
  "ar": {
   "sections": [
    {
     "heading": "ملخص",
     "markdown": "ألف شفق ⁦(وُلدت سنة 1971)⁩ روائية وكاتبة مقالات وعالمة سياسة تركية بريطانية تكتب بالتركية والإنجليزية، نشرت واحدًا وعشرين كتابًا تُرجمت إلى نحو ستين لغة {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-en} {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-ar}. ووصفتها الفايننشال تايمز بأنها أبرز روائية في تركيا {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-en}."
    },
    {
     "heading": "حياتها",
     "markdown": "وُلدت شفق في ستراسبورغ في 25 تشرين الأول 1971 لأستاذ في علم النفس الاجتماعي وأم أصبحت لاحقًا دبلوماسية، ونشأت في أنقرة عند أمها وجدتها بعد انفصال والديها {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-en} {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-ar}. نالت درجات في العلاقات الدولية ودراسات المرأة من جامعة الشرق الأوسط التقنية ودكتوراه في العلوم السياسية، ودرّست في تركيا والولايات المتحدة قبل أن تستقر في لندن سنة 2013 {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-en}."
    },
    {
     "heading": "أعمالها",
     "markdown": "من رواياتها «لقيطة إسطنبول» التي أدى تناولها للإبادة الأرمنية إلى محاكمتها بتهمة «إهانة الهوية التركية» سنة 2006 وتبرئتها في أيلول من تلك السنة، و«قواعد العشق الأربعون» رواية الرومي وشمس التبريزي الأكثر مبيعًا والتي التصوف فيها موضوعها الروائي {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-en} {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-ar}. ومن أعمالها اللاحقة «ثلاث بنات لحواء» و«10 دقائق و38 ثانية في هذا العالم الغريب» المرشحة لجائزة بوكر و«ثمة أنهار في السماء» (2024) {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-en}. تكتب في صحف عالمية، وكانت زميلة في أكسفورد، وتولت في كانون الأول 2025 رئاسة الجمعية الملكية للأدب {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-en}. لا يثبت أي نص مقروء لهذا السجل انتماءً دينيًا لشفق نفسها — فتصوف رواياتها مادتها الأدبية لا انتماؤها — ولذلك سُجل دينها غير معروف {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-en} {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-ar} {cite:wikidata-elif-shafak}."
    },
    {
     "heading": "المصادر",
     "markdown": "- {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-en}\n- {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-ar}\n- {cite:wikidata-elif-shafak}"
    }
   ],
   "frontmatter": {
    "id": "person/elif-shafak",
    "lang": "ar",
    "source_lang": "ar",
    "translators": []
   },
   "updated": "2026-11-06"
  },
  "en": {
   "sections": [
    {
     "heading": "Summary",
     "markdown": "Elif Shafak (born 1971) is a Turkish-British novelist, essayist and political scientist who writes in Turkish and English and has published twenty-one books translated into almost sixty languages {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-en} {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-ar}. The Financial Times has described her as Turkey's leading female novelist {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-en}."
    },
    {
     "heading": "Life",
     "markdown": "Shafak was born in Strasbourg on 25 October 1971 to a professor of social psychology and a mother who later became a diplomat, and was raised in Ankara by her mother and maternal grandmother after her parents separated {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-en} {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-ar}. She took degrees in international relations and women's studies at Middle East Technical University and a PhD in political science, and taught in Turkey and the United States before settling in London in 2013 {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-en}."
    },
    {
     "heading": "Work",
     "markdown": "Her novels include The Bastard of Istanbul, whose treatment of the Armenian genocide led to her prosecution for 'insulting Turkishness' in 2006 and acquittal that September, and The Forty Rules of Love, a bestselling novel of Rumi and Shams of Tabriz in which Sufism is her subject matter {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-en} {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-ar}. Later works include Three Daughters of Eve, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World, shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and There Are Rivers in the Sky (2024) {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-en}. She contributes to international newspapers, has been a fellow at Oxford, and in December 2025 became president of the Royal Society of Literature {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-en}. No text read for this record attests a religious affiliation for Shafak herself - the Sufism of her fiction is her material, not her affiliation - so her faith is recorded as unknown {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-en} {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-ar} {cite:wikidata-elif-shafak}."
    },
    {
     "heading": "Sources",
     "markdown": "- {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-en}\n- {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-ar}\n- {cite:wikidata-elif-shafak}"
    }
   ],
   "frontmatter": {
    "id": "person/elif-shafak",
    "lang": "en",
    "source_lang": "ar",
    "translators": []
   },
   "updated": "2026-11-02"
  },
  "ur": {
   "sections": [
    {
     "heading": "خلاصہ",
     "markdown": "ایلِف شفق (پیدائش 1971) ترک نژاد برطانوی ناول نگار و سیاسیات دان ہیں جو ترکی و انگریزی میں لکھتی ہیں اور جن کی اکیس کتابیں تقریباً ساٹھ زبانوں میں ترجمہ ہو چکی ہیں {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-en} {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-ar}۔"
    },
    {
     "heading": "زندگی و کام",
     "markdown": "شفق 25 اکتوبر 1971 کو اسٹراسبرگ میں پیدا ہوئیں، انقرہ میں پرورش پائی، سیاسیات میں پی ایچ ڈی کی، اور 2013 سے لندن میں مقیم ہیں {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-en} {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-ar}۔ ان کے ناولوں میں «لقیطۂ استنبول» — جس پر 2006 میں مقدمہ چلا اور وہ بری ہوئیں — اور رومی و شمس تبریزی پر «قواعد العشق الأربعون» شامل ہیں، جس میں تصوف ان کا ادبی موضوع ہے {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-en}۔ کسی پڑھے گئے متن میں ان کے اپنے مذہبی انتماء کا ثبوت نہیں، لہٰذا ان کا مذہب غیر معلوم درج ہے {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-en} {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-ar} {cite:wikidata-elif-shafak}۔"
    },
    {
     "heading": "مآخذ",
     "markdown": "- {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-en}\n- {cite:wikipedia-elif-shafak-ar}\n- {cite:wikidata-elif-shafak}"
    }
   ],
   "frontmatter": {
    "id": "person/elif-shafak",
    "lang": "ur",
    "source_lang": "ar",
    "translators": []
   },
   "updated": "2026-11-02"
  }
 },
 "degree": 0,
 "contemporaries": [
  "person/abbas-ali-amid-zanjani",
  "person/abbas-kiarostami",
  "person/abd-al-aziz-al-ghumari",
  "person/abd-al-fattah-abu-ghudda",
  "person/abd-al-halim-mahmud",
  "person/abd-al-jabbar-al-jumurd",
  "person/abd-al-rahman-badawi",
  "person/abd-al-razzaq-nawfal",
  "person/abd-allah-ibn-al-siddiq-al-ghumari",
  "person/abdel-halim-hafez",
  "person/abdel-rahman-swar-al-dahab",
  "person/abdelaziz-bouteflika"
 ],
 "updated": "2026-11-06",
 "connections": [],
 "related": [],
 "license": {
  "prose": "CC BY-SA 4.0",
  "data": "CC0 1.0"
 }
}