Ayesha Jalal (Punjabi, ) is a Pakistani-American historian known for her work documenting the biography and career of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder and first Governor-General of Pakistan. She is currently the Mary Richardson Professor of History at Tufts University. Earlier in her career, Jalal taught at Harvard University and Columbia University.
Family and early life
Jalal was born in Lahore, Pakistan in 1956, to Hamid Jalal, a senior Pakistani civil servant, and his wife Zakia Jalal. She is related in two ways to the Urdu writer Saadat Hasan Manto. Her paternal grandmother was the sister of Manto. Secondly, Manto's wife Safia was the sister of Ayesha's mother Zakia Jalal. In other words, the uncle-nephew pair of Manto and Hamid Jalal were married to the sisters Safia and Zakia. In 1999, she joined Tufts University as a tenured professor.
The bulk of her work deals with the creation of Muslim identities in modern South Asia.
Career
Ayesha Jalal has been Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge (1980–1984), Leverhulme Fellow at the Center of South Asian Studies, Cambridge (1984–1987), Fellow of the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, DC (1985–1986), Academy Scholar at Harvard University's Academy for International and Area Studies (1988–1990), associate professor at Columbia University's Department of History (1991–1995). She has taught at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, Tufts University, Columbia University, Harvard University and Lahore University of Management Sciences.
Ayesha Jalal is among the most prominent American academics who write on the history of South Asia.
- Sitara-i-Imtiaz (Star of Distinction) by the President of Pakistan in 2009.
Recognition
The Hindu, a newspaper of record in India, calls her, "...one of Pakistan's most acclaimed historians..."