page_title: Fatma Aliye Topuz
section_title: Recognition and controversy
hierarchical_section_title: Fatma Aliye Topuz / Recognition and controversy
caption_attribution_description: English: Reverse of 50 Turkish Lira Türkçe: 50 Türk Lirası'nın arka yüzü
context_page_description: Fatma Aliye Topuz, often known simply as Fatma Aliye or Fatma Aliye Hanım, was a Turkish novelist, columnist, essayist, women's rights activist and humanitarian. Although there was an earlier published novel by the Turkish female author Zafer Hanım in 1877, since that one remained her only novel, Fatma Aliye Hanım with her five novels is credited by literary circles as the first female novelist in Turkish literature and the Islamic world.
context_section_description: Although Zafer Hanım wrote her novel Aşk-ı Vatan ("Motherland Love") in 1877, years before Fatma Aliye Hanım, she is not credited as the first Turkish female writer due to her only one work published.
  Fatma Aliye's portrait is depicted on the reverse of the 50 Turkish lira banknote issued in 2009. However, the Turkish Central Bank's decision to choose her to appear as the first woman ever so honored and as the first female Turkish writer created controversy among Turkish people of letters and historians. The critics argued that female writers like Halide Edip Adıvar or Afet Inan of the Republican Era are more appropriate to adorn a banknote with Atatürk's portrait on the observe than is Fatma Aliye, who developed her ideas of women's rights in the context of sharia (Islamic law) and  who opposed Atatürk's reforms.
caption: Reverse of the 50 lira banknote (2009)
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