Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah
Begum Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah (22 July 1915 – 11 December 2000) was a Pakistani politician, diplomat and author. She joined the Pakistani foreign service in 1948, and was the country's first female civil servant, as well as the first Muslim woman to earn a PhD from the University of London. She was Pakistan's ambassador to Morocco from 1964 to 1967, and a delegate to the United Nations, calling for a more gender-inclusive language in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Also recorded as Begum Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah · Shaista Ikramullah · Shaista Suhrawardy · Begum Shaista S. Ikramullah
Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah

Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy: The Last Bengali Prime Minister of Pakistan · Public domain
- Name
- Shaista Ikramullah
- Born
- 22 July 1915
- Birthplace
- Calcutta, Bengal, British India
- Died
- 11 December 2000
- Place of death
- Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan
- Education
- University of Calcutta (B.A) SOAS, University of London (Ph.D)
- Occupation
- Politician, diplomat, writer
- Nationality
- Pakistan · British Raj
- Languages
- Urdu
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Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah compare negli archivi di autorità della Bibliothèque nationale de France e della Deutsche Nationalbibliothek come politica (22 luglio 1915 – 11 dicembre 2000).
Vita
Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah nacque il 22 luglio 1915 a Calcutta, India e morì l'11 dicembre 2000 a Karachi.
Istituzioni citate
Bibliothèque nationale de France · Deutsche Nationalbibliothek
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Documentary evidence
Documentary basis
Authority files
wikidata · Q4199082 · wikipedia · Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah
In this article
Key facts
Key facts
• Honorific Suffix — NI • Name — Shaista Ikramullah • Office2 — Member of the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan • Term Start2 — 10 August 1947 • Term End2 — 24 October 1954 • Constituency2 — East Bengal • Born — 22 July 1915 • Birthplace — Calcutta, Bengal, British India • Died — 11 December 2000 • Place of death — Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan • Education — University of Calcutta (B.A) SOAS, University of London (Ph.D) • Occupation — Politician, diplomat, writer • Children — Inam Ikramullah Naz Ikramullah Salma Ikramullah Sarvath Ikramullah • Father — Hassan Suhrawardy
Family and education
Family and education
Ikramullah was born as Shaista Akhtar Banu Suhrawardy into the Suhrawardy family to Hassan Suhrawardy and his wife Sahibzadi Shah Banu Begum. Shah Banu Begum was the daughter of Nawab Syed Muhammad Azad and maternal granddaughter of Nawab Abdul Latif. She studied at Loreto College, Kolkata. She was also the first Muslim woman to earn a PhD from the University of London. Her doctorate thesis, "Development of the Urdu Novel and Short Story", was a critical survey of Urdu literature.
Marriage and children
Marriage and children
She married Mohammed Ikramullah in 1933. They had four children: • Inam Ikramullah • Naz Ashraf • Salma Sobhan • Princess Sarvath of Jordan
Political career
Political career
After her marriage, she was one of the first Indian Muslim women in her generation to leave purdah. Muhammad Ali Jinnah inspired her to be involved in politics. She was a leader in the Muslim Women Student's Federation and the All-India Muslim League's Women's Sub-Committee. In 1945, she was asked by the Government of India to attend the Pacific Relations Conference. Jinnah convinced her not to accept the offer, as he wanted her to go as the representative of the Muslim League and to speak on its behalf. She was elected to the Constituent Assembly of India in 1946, but never took the seat, as Muslim League politicians did not. She was one of two female representatives at the first Constituent Assembly of Pakistan in 1947. She was also a delegate to the United Nations, and worked on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) and the Convention Against Genocide (1951). She was Pakistan's ambassador to Morocco from 1964 to 1967.
Death
Death
She died on 11 December 2000, in Karachi, at age 85.
Identity and origins
Identity and origins
Ikramullah and Shaista S. Her recorded language was Urdu. Her recorded confession was Islam. She was the child of Hassan Suhrawardy. She married Mohammed Ikramullah. 3 children are recorded: Princess Sarvath El Hassan, Naz Ikramullah and Salma Sobhan.
Life and career
Dated record
Life and career
The full dated record · 2 entries
1915
Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah born at Kolkata.
2000
Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah died at Karachi.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
Kolkata.
Birth place
Karachi.
Death place
Publications
She wrote for Tehzeeb-e-Niswan and Ismat, both Urdu women's magazines, and later wrote for English-language newspapers. In 1950 her collection of short stories, called Koshish-e-Natamaam, was published. In 1951 her book Letters to Neena was published; it is a collection of ten open letters supposedly written to Indians, who are personified as a woman called Neena. The real Neena was one of her in-laws. After the Partition of India, she wrote about Islam for the government, and those essays were eventually published as Beyond the Veil (1953). Her autobiography, From Purdah to Parliament (1963), is her best-known writing; she translated it into Urdu to make it more accessible. In 1991 her book Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy: A Biography, about her uncle, was published. She also was one of the eight writers of the book Common Heritage (1997), about India and Pakistan. In her last days, she completed an English translation of Mirat ul Uroos and an Urdu volume on Kahavat aur Mahavray. In 2005 her collection of women's sayings and idioms in Urdu, called Dilli ki khavatin ki kahavatain aur muhavare, was posthumously published. She also wrote Safarnama, in Urdu.
Awards and recognition
In 2002, President of Pakistan posthumously gave her the highest civil award, Nishan-i-Imtiaz (Order of Excellence) award.
Text attribution
Licensing
Text attribution
Part of the biographical narrative on this page reuses licensed material. Its origin, revision and licence are recorded here.
The biographical narrative on this page is based on the Wikipedia article Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah, revision 1368925398 (EN edition), by its contributors. VALÉORINE has edited that text and built its own documentary record around it. The reused material is available under CC BY-SA 4.0, and this page's reuse of it is offered under the same licence. Everything else on this page — the chronology, the holdings, the evidence, the plates and the connections — is VALÉORINE's own record. Sources and licences.
Notes from the source article
Cited by Wikipedia
Notes from the source article
These works are cited by the source article, in its own numbering. They are recorded as its citations, not as sources VALÉORINE has verified.
- 1.Bonnie G. Smith. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Women in World History. Oxford University Press. 528. 2008. 978-0-19-514890-9.
- 2.Muneeza Shamsie. And the World Changed: Contemporary Stories by Pakistani Women. Feminist Press at CUNY. 6. 11 July 2015. 978-1-55861-931-9.
- 3.Adami, Rebecca. Women and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Routledge. 111–126. 2019. 9780429437939.
- 4.Rab, A. S. M. Abdur. A. K. Fazlul Haq: Life and Achievements. Ferozsons. 8–9. 1967.
- 5.Women.ncr-iran.org. NCRI Women's Committee - Women in History - 22 July. 28 July 2018.
- 6.Begum Shaista Ikramullah storyofpakistan.com website, Retrieved 8 April 2019
- 7.Nayantara Pothen. Glittering Decades: New Delhi in Love and War. Penguin Books Limited. 218. 30 January 2012. 978-81-8475-601-2.
- 8.Muhammad Ikramullah. Doc Kazi's collection by Muhammad Ikramullah. The Friday Times. 2006-02-03.
- 9.Columbia University Press. Sources of Indian Traditions: Modern India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh. 574. 15 April 2014. 978-0-231-51092-9.
- 10.Status of the Convention
- 11.Hussein, Aamer. COLUMN: Forgotten literary past. Dawn. 29 December 2013.
- 12.M. Reza Pirbhai. Fatima Jinnah. Cambridge University Press. 143. 27 May 2017. 978-1-107-19276-8.
- 13.Begum Shaista Ikramullah - Former First Female Representative of the first Constituent Assembly of Pakistan. 21 October 2013.
- 14.Ṣiddīqī, Muḥammad ʻAlī. Common Heritage. Oxford University Press. 13 February 1997. 9780195778083.
- 15.President gives away civil, military awards Dawn (newspaper), Published 24 March 2002, Retrieved 9 April 2019
References
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People, houses and institutions
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People, houses and institutions
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Studied at
1- University of CalcuttaOrganisation
Established from a fact already recorded on a verified source.
Further particulars
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Further particulars
Open the remaining particulars
Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah is recorded as having studied at SOAS, University of London, University of Calcutta and Loreto College. Connected to 1 other published record in the VALÉORINE Encyclopedia.
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