Born in Calcutta, British India

Shaista Suhrawardy Ikramullah was born on 23 July 1915 in Calcutta, in what was then British India, into the distinguished Suhrawardy family — a family renowned for its scholars, judges, and politicians, including her uncle Sir Hassan Suhrawardy and her cousin Huseyn Shaheed Suhrawardy, who later became Prime Minister of Pakistan.

Her father, Sir Hassan Suhrawardy, was a physician and educationist, while her family's intellectual and reformist environment set an unusually progressive tone for a Muslim household of that era. Despite the practice of purdah (seclusion of women) still common among Muslim families of her class, Shaista's parents encouraged her education, an uncommon opportunity for girls at the time.

This early exposure to a household that valued learning and public service laid the foundation for her later achievements as a scholar, diplomat, and one of the first women to break through the political and academic barriers imposed on Muslim women in colonial and postcolonial South Asia. Her birth into this milieu of reform-minded intellectuals directly shaped her lifelong advocacy for women's rights and education.