Meet The First Shia Woman From Maharashtra To Get A Commercial Pilot’s Licence

Mohaddesa Jafri, the 26-year-old daughter of Jogeshwari West couple Maulana Sher Mohammed Jafri and Aelema Farah Jafri, is now the first Shia woman from Maharashtra to get a commercial pilot’s licence. Her parents, who are both senior Shia preachers and clerics, are now being lauded for the continuous support they have provided their daughter.

“She is the first Shia girl in Maharashtra to become a commercial pilot,” Maulana Jafri said in an interview. “My wife and I are preachers. It is because of blessings of Allah and Hazrat Imam Hussain (Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, who was martyred at the battle of Karbala in 680 AD in Iraq) that she could realise her dream.”

Mohaddesa Jafri, inspired by Kalpana Chawla—who died when Jafri was just seven—pursued her career in aviation with constant encouragement from her cleric father. “I silently became Kalpana Chawla’s fan and as I grew up, I read several biographies and hundreds of articles and watched many videos on her. I told my parents I wanted to join the aviation industry,” she revealed in an interview. Jafri worked at an airline’s office in Bengaluru, then joined a flying school in 2020 in Springs—a place near Johannerburg, South Africa, where her father had lived for many years. This link wasn’t the only reason Jafri went to South Africa to get her certification—“uncharitable remarks” from relatives also aided this decision.

Jafri’s mother revealed that they often came across comments like “how could a maulana and alema (female religious scholar) put their only daughter into a pilot’s course?”. “We kept quiet as we knew we were not doing anything wrong,” her mother said. “If our daughter had a dream and there was nothing irreligious or immoral in it, we had to support her.”