Falak Sufi

The Falak Sufi scholarship is a scholarship that has been introduced by The Graduate School of Arts & Science of New York University. Candidates for the master’s program in Near Eastern Studies are eligible to apply; including applicants to the program’s joint degree with Journalism, the concentration with Museum Studies, and the business track.This scholarship is also to support those individuals who belong to countries in South Asia with a majority Islamic population.

The Falak Sufi scholarship is in honor of Falak Sufi who was a Karachiite, born in Pakistan in 1983. She graduated from the Department of Political Science at the National University of Singapore with a first class Honors degree and carried on to pursue her graduate studies at NYU. She was an upcoming scholar who focused on issues related to women and gender in South Asia. Falak Sufi, aged twenty-three, died on 19 March 2008, not much can be found on how she died exactly.

I was skimming through the paper and found an advertisement for this scholarship by NYU and it was amazing to see the honor that this female from Pakistan has gotten and that to at such a young age.

We tend to complain about the neglect women and scholars of our country face, while we ourselves are neglecting them. Who knew Falak Sufi before this scholarship was announced? I know I didn’t know her. And it gives me great grief that I never met this fine young woman who belonged to my very own country. Before we stereotype what the world thinks of us as Pakistani’s we must look into what we are not told most of the time. This girl was a Muslim, Pakistani, female-all three of which are said to be discriminated against in their own way in today’s day and age; yet I see an institute as prestigious as NYU has honored her in a way that we would have never deemed possible. So really, I urge the people of Pakistan to look through the bubble we all have been put in and into a world that may seem alien to us today but very much exists.