Ruqsana Begum

Ruqsana Begum is a British kickboxer and boxer, born on 15 October 1983 and brought up in Bethnal Green, London, in a family of Bangladeshi origin. Known as the "Warrior Princess", she won the British Muay Thai title in 2010 and a world title in 2016, later turned professional in boxing, designed a sports-hijab line to draw more Muslim women into combat sports, and wrote the book Born Fighter. She is also a trained architect, educated at the University of Westminster. ^{1 2}

Begum was born and brought up in Bethnal Green in a strict, religious Muslim household. In 2002, at eighteen, she took up a kickboxing class after college and kept her training secret for almost five years, fearing her family might not approve; she told them in 2006, after graduating from university, and once they had seen the gym they did not stop her. She began fighting professionally in 2008, training under Bill Judd at the KO Gym in Bethnal Green. ¹

On 27 November 2010 Begum defeated Paige Farrington to win the British Muay Thai atomweight professional title; Sky News described her as the only Muslim woman who is a national champion in her sport. On 23 April 2016 she beat Sweden's Susanna Salmijärvi to win the World Kickboxing Association (WKA) world title. She turned professional in boxing in 2018, and in March 2023, in Dhaka, Bangladesh, she won the WBU female intercontinental championship. ^{1 3}

Begum lives with chronic fatigue syndrome (ME) and has adapted her training around the condition. She coaches children free of charge in East London and works as a coach for the charity Fight for Peace. In 2015 she designed a sports hijab for combat sports and in April 2016 launched her own line, to help more Muslim women get into combat sports. She carried the Olympic torch in Greenwich on 21 July 2012 and received an "Achievement Award for Breaking Down Barriers" from Queen Elizabeth II. Her book Born Fighter (2020) was shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year. ¹

• The articles registered in this record's sources: English, Persian and Egyptian Arabic Wikipedia, and Wikidata Q7380461. No standard-Arabic Wikipedia article exists for her, so the Arabic page of this record is written from the English and Persian articles.