Ševala Zildžić-Iblizović was born on January 9th, 1903, in the famous Sarajevo family Zildžić, known for practicing the art of brass works. She was born into a very progressive family of that period that sought to adequately educate both girls and boys, despite the customs of the time. There were many educated people in her family, so she was given the opportunity to decide whether she wanted to go to school or not. In 1912, Ševala enrolled in the newly founded Girls School, an excellent foundation for the Teachers' School, but Ševala had different plans. Even from a very young age, she openly expressed her ambitions to one day become a doctor. Her desire for better education was a taboo topic in Sarajevo at the time. Society's condemnation of that time went so far that her mother had often been denied the purchase of groceries in the settlement where they lived because of the belief that girls did not belong to the so-called 'Men's school'. 

After the Management of the Men's Gymnasium rejected her enrollment application, Ševala decided to take a slightly more extreme step. Together with her father, she decided to seek permission to continue her education from the then reis-ul-ulema, Džemaludin Čaušević. Who, with his approval, had changed Ševala's life forever and opened the door to a quality education that women of that time could only dream of. But her struggle did not stop there. At the beginning of her schooling, she became a victim of peer violence as the only girl who attended the Men's Gymnasium. To prevent or alleviate the violence she suffered, Ševala’s father drove her to school daily and returned her home. Her relentless struggle for equality set an example for young females and opened the door to higher education for women in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

After graduating secondary school, she enrolled at the Faculty of Medicine in Zagreb, where she met Muhamed Iblizović, a philosophy student. Muhamed soon transferred to the Faculty of Medicine because of Ševala, and in the second year of their study (1927.), Ševala and Muhamed decided to get married. In 1931, Ševala received the title of medical doctor and graduated as the first female Muslim doctor of medicine in Europe. Muhamed graduated the same year, and the news of the first Muslim married couple of medical doctors was published in the New York Times. After completing her medical studies, she worked as a teaching assistant at the Medical Faculty in Zagreb. When she had been offered a more permanent assistant position, she decided to return to Sarajevo, where she got a job after two years. She began her medical residency at the City Hospital in Sarajevo and volunteered at the Infectious Diseases Department of the State Hospital. After that, she found a job at the Hygiene Institute, within the National Hospital. At the same time, she began to actively volunteer in the associations Gajret, Merhamet, and Trezvenost and became a librarian and archivist of the local branch of the Women's Movement. During World War II, Ševala found ways to help those in need. As the hospitals in Sarajevo did not work, Dr. Ševala Zildžić-Iblizović visited patients privately and facilitated birth in their homes, regardless of ethnicity, social status, the political and religious affiliation of women. She put her life on the line in order to provide women with safe labor. Despite the difficult period in which she lived, Ševala did not violate the Hippocratic oath. She retired in 1962 at the polyclinic  Dr. Mare Kurtović as a specialist, gynaecologist, and paediatrician. In addition to engagements in public hospitals and institutions, Dr. Zildžić-Iblizović and her husband also owned a private practice, equipped with all modern equipment and multifunctional, one of the first to have an X-ray and a refrigerator for storing medicines.

In 1934, the Iblizović couple had their first child, son Mirza, who would later follow his parents' footsteps and become a medical doctor himself. In addition to Mirza, the family grew by another member, daughter Emira, who later became an English teacher. Dr. Mirza Iblizović was a passionate philanthropist and numismatist and was active in this field for over sixty years. He has had over twenty author exhibitions behind him. Mirza's daughter, Nermina, is the third generation of Iblizović family who hold the title of doctor of medicine. Nermina, like Dr. Ševala Zildžić-Iblizović, wrote history herself and was the first specialist in neurosurgery in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In 1978, she was diagnosed with a tumor of the abdominal organs, from which complications she soon died at the age of 75. BH Post, on the eve of the hundredth anniversary of her birth, in 2002 also published a postage stamp with the image of Dr. Zildzic-Iblizovic. 

Today, a Sarajevo street bears Ševala's name and her story serves as an inspiration to young women in the region in the fight against patriarchal paradigms and imposed customs and traditions. Because of her fearless personality and relentless struggle for quality education and equality, she deservedly bears the title of the heroine of knowledge.

BH Futures Foundation thanks the following individuals for their contributions to the Dr. Ševali Zildžić-Iblizović tribute page:

Lamija Muratagic, Habiba Ačkar, Dr. Eddie Custovic

• Tim novinara Magazina StartBiH. „Ševala Zildžić-Iblizović, prva Bošnjakinja doktorica: Partizanka s fildžanom u Evropi“. // StartBiH, 18. oktobar 2005; 179. Str. 56. i 57.

• Amina Ahmetašević. “Druga u svijetu” // Oslobođenje, 17.septembar 1995.

• Dragan Bursać. “Historijski razgovor reisa Čauševića i djevojčice Ševale” // Al-jazeera, 21. decembar 2019. 

• Fabio Giomi. “Making Muslim Women European: Voluntary Associations, Gender and Islam in Post-Ottoman Bosnia and Yugoslavia (1878–1941)” // Central European University Press Budapest-New York 2021 

• Lou Masacky. “Ševala ili o hradrosti” // portal Dva Boema, 04. april 2021.