Whatever You Do, Give It Your Best

Like any student, Uzair Ibrahim has faced and overcome challenges likely encountered by his peers. These include deciding what subjects to study in school, dealing with academic pressure and channeling his creative energy into a suitable thesis topic towards the conclusion of his time as an undergraduate student at Habib University. Uzair has, however, also had to deal with other challenges that are difficult for most to imagine. “Both my legs were permanently crossed,” recalls the 25 year old. “My journey has consisted of many corrective surgeries to address these issues whilst growing up. Doctors still can’t determine if I have cerebral palsy, but it seems likely.” While Uzair will likely utilise a wheelchair for the rest of his life, he says that his parents refused to allow his disability to define the person he would grow up to become. “If anything, many of my interests were influenced by my health,” he says. “Doctors had advised my mother to give me toys that influence mental development, and thus I became enamored with things like jigsaw puzzles. Rather than being interested in toys and sports, I’ve always been engrossed by books and reading.” Yet despite his intellectual talents being honed at an early age, the prospect of going to school was a daunting one. “Everyone told my mother to put me in a special school,” Uzair says. “But she refused. She knew that even with facilities available to me, I would not receive the type of education she wanted.” It was this stubborn refusal to give in to societal pressure that allowed him to begin Kindergarten at the age of 9 when a school finally agreed to enroll him. “They were nervous at first, but eventually they liked me enough to want me not to leave!” he jokes. After graduating from Grade 10, Uzair became an Intermediate student at the Aga Khan Higher Secondary School, Karimabad, Karachi. It was here that he also came into contact with the Aga Khan University Examination Board (AKU-EB) for the first time.

“Studying under AKU-EB forced me to give up trying to memorise what I actually wanted to learn,” he recalls. “Instead of writing three pages of fluff, I learned how to get to the point in my writing succinctly and without having to rely on anyone else to help me understand what I was reading.” It was at this time that Uzair also came to secondary realisation: He wished to study subjects related to the humanities, rather than the pre-Engineering focus he had chosen whilst initially enrolling at the school. The problem, however, was that the school did not offer AKU-EB’s HSSC Humanities subject focus. But Uzair remained undaunted. With a bold plan in mind, he requested that he be provided with a unique accommodation: He would switch to a Humanities focus and continue studying compulsory subjects with his peers, but embark on an odyssey of self-learning for the three subjects that would form his Humanities core: English Literature, Islamic Studies and Islamic History. To his delight, the school accepted this proposal! This, however, also meant that Uzair’s workload took on an additional element of difficulty. “I wasn’t assessed for any of the subjects that I chose to learn by myself,” he says thoughtfully. “I had to instill the discipline and drive to be prepared for the examinations by myself.” Directly after graduating, Uzair enrolled at the newly built Habib University. “As neoliberalism would have it, I could not go to the USA!” he laughs. “I had to choose between enrolling at Habib or going to Depaul University in Chicago. I never imagined that a university in Karachi would be physically accommodating towards me, but was glad to be proven wrong.” Whilst at Habib, Uzair majored in Social Development and Policy. As it turned out, the learning habits that he picked up during his HSSC studies proved invaluable here. “I realised that I had already been preparing to study at university through the way I studied under AKU-EB,” he says. “The bulk of my work and research was done independently. While I no longer had the luxury of being able to give succinct answers, I was already able to understand vast concepts in simple formats.” It was this attitude that saw Uzair appear on the Habib University Dean’s List three times, President’s List once, and obtain a High Academic Leap scholarship, which covered his payable tuition fee for the entire semester. As if this were not enough, a part of the initial batch of students referred to as “Co-Founders”, Uzair also joined the campus ethos committee in the move towards forming a student government, co-founded the Dramatic club and was a Teaching Assistant twice. After penning a fascinating thesis that examines Islamic conceptions of ecological justice through the lens of allegory, Uzair is now preparing to begin his Masters studies at the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London. There, he will join other AKU-EB alumni for an intensive three year “Graduate Programme in Islamic Studies and Humanities”, with a goal of spending his final year at the School of Oriental and African Studies. His advice to other students is to put their whole heart and soul into whatever task they happen to focus on: “Regardless of whatever they hope to do, they should do their best. I am living proof that life is not decided based on what circumstances you are born into. The most important thing is to give yourself the time and space to be honest about what you want!”