King Amanullah Khan had been deposed in 1929 because of discontent partially caused by the example of Queen Soraya Tarzi, who appeared in public with her husband unveiled, and his successor reinstated the veil and gender seclusion.

[5] In August 1959 therefore, on the second day of the festival of Jeshyn, Queen Humaira and Princess Bilqis appeared in the royal box at the military parade unveiled, alongside the Prime Minister's wife, Zamina Begum.

[5] When the clerics could not find such a passage, the Prime Minister declared that the female members of the royal family would no longer wear veils, as the Islamic law did not demand it.

[5] While the chadri was never banned, the example of the Queen and the Prime Minister's wife was followed by the wives and daughters of government officials as well as several urban women of the upper- and middle class, with Kubra Noorzai and Masuma Esmati-Wardak known as the first pioneers among the common citizens.

[citation needed] On 17 July 1973, while her husband was in Italy undergoing eye surgery as well as therapy for lumbago, his cousin and former Prime Minister Mohammed Daoud Khan, who had been removed from office by Zahir Shah a decade earlier, staged a coup d'état and established a republican government.

Humaira and Zahir Shah spent their twenty-nine years in exile in Italy living in a relatively modest four-bedroom villa in the affluent community of Olgiata on Via Cassia, north of the city of Rome.

[6] Her body was returned to Afghanistan on 29 June, and was greeted at the airport by military personnel, tribal representatives in traditional robes, and cabinet ministers from Hamid Karzai's government.