Ilsa Abdul Razzak (she/her/hers)

Graduate Student
Ilsa-Abdul-Razzak, Graduate Student, History

Contact Information

SMI 103D

Biography

M.A., South Asia Studies, University of Washington, Seattle, 2022
B.S., Social Sciences and Liberal Arts, IBA, Karachi, 2018

Ilsa is a fourth-year student and PhD candidate, working on the late Mughal Empire in South Asia. She recently completed fieldwork for her dissertation in Pakistan and the UK. Ilsa has been studying manuscripts on rituals written in vernacular languages such as Dakhni, Gojri, and Hindavi, and texts on Islamic jurisprudence authored in the late seventeenth century. Broadly, Ilsa is interested in understanding the social history of jurists and scholars in the Mughal Empire, which will be the focus of her dissertation. She has presented some of her work at the 2023 AAS Annual Conference, at the 51st ACSA 2023 in Madison, at graduate student workshops on campus, and at student-led discussions in Karachi. Her language training includes paleography skills in Hindavi, and advanced Persian and Arabic. Apart from her primary field which is early modern South Asia, Ilsa's secondary fields are modern South Asia, comparative colonialisms, and Persianate poetics and texts. 

Ilsa completed an MA in South Asia Studies in 2022 from the University of Washington. Her research focused on a multi-volume legal text, the Fatava-e Alamgiri, compiled in the late seventeenth century. Prior to working on early modern South Asia, Ilsa has done research work with oral histories, and histories of the Partition of South Asia. Her undergraduate thesis focused on the experiences of women who migrated from India to Pakistan in the 1980s and 1990s. A condensed version of this research was published as a cover story. In her free time, Ilsa watches old Pakistani dramas, reads Urdu poetry, cooks, and writes (sporadically) for her Wordpress blog (now a Substack).

PhC International Research Travel Funding, Department of History, 2025
International Research Fellowship/Chester Fritz, The Graduate School, 2024-2025
Arlene Hunter Scholarship, College of Arts & Sciences, 2024-2025
Rondeau Evans Fellowship, Department of History, Fall 2024 & Winter 2025
American Institute of Pakistan Studies (AIPS) Short-Term Research Grant, 2024
UW South Asia Center Research Materials Grants, 2023 & 2024
History Conference Funding (ACSA Madison), 2023
Pre-dissertation Research Travel Funding, Summer 2023
Departmental Fellowship, 2022-2023
Jackson School Graduate Book Award, June 2022
Fulbright Scholarship, 2020-2022

Winter 2024

Autumn 2023

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