Basharat Issa
Education
- MSc in Social Anthropology (Religion in the Contemporary World), London School of Economics and Political Science, UK (2017–2018) — fully funded scholarship
- Graduate Program in Islamic Studies and Humanities (GPISH), The Institute of Ismaili Studies, London (2015–2017) — full scholarship
- BS (Hons) Sociology (Minor: Political Science), Forman Christian College, Lahore, Pakistan (2011–2015) — included a semester in the US on the Global Undergraduate Exchange Program
Courses Taught
- Introduction to Cultural Anthropology Approaches, Methods and Key Issues in the Study of Religion
Biography
Basharat Issa has been serving as Faculty Director of Academic Centers and Library at Habib University since August 2025, providing strategic and operational leadership for the academic centers based in the School of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences. He joined Habib University as a Lecturer in January 2020 and was promoted to Lecturer II in September 2024. He teaches What is Modernity, Hikma – History of Islamic Thought, Pakistan and Modern South Asia, Anthropology of Religion, Introduction to World Religions, Introduction to Cultural Anthropology, and Approaches, Methods and Key Issues in the Study of Religion.
Before his current appointment, Issa was a Research Assistant at the Aga Khan University’s Institute for Educational Development (November 2018–November 2019), and served as Associate Producer on the documentary The Sky is Far, The Earth is Tough (2021), directed by fellow Habib faculty member Haya Fatima Iqbal, conducting field research and translation in District Ghizer, Gilgit-Baltistan.
His research centers on Ismaili studies, minority Muslim communities, and the ethnography and history of Gilgit-Baltistan, including an ongoing Habib Faculty Research Grant project (August 2024–ongoing) on preserving endangered historic documents in Ghizer. He presented “Ismailis Negotiating Modernity and Marginality” at the LUMS HSS Annual Conference in April 2025, and organized the First Burushaski Conference (2022).
Selected Publications
- “Between Celebration and Stigmatization: The Musicians of Yasin Valley,” in Beyond Mountains: The Social and Political Imaginaries in Gilgit Baltistan, eds. Nosheen Ali and Aziz Ali Dad, Raachi Publications, 2024.
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