Jalil was born in Lahore on 22 February 1944, then part of colonial India, her family were from the United Provinces but had settled in Karachi.[5][6] Her father, Zafarul Ahsan was the deputy commissioner of Lahore at the time of the British Indian Empire in 1947, and later he worked as an Indian Civil Service (ICS) officer.[6] Her sister is the Pakistani architect, Yasmeen Lari.