Qamar Jalil has a Master's degree from Punjab University, Lahore, Pakistan. He also completed 6 courses toward an M.A. in South Asian studies from the University of Pennsylvania. Before coming to UW-Madison, Qamar taught Urdu in the Berkeley Urdu Language Program in Pakistan (BULPIP), a program of the University of California, Berkeley which has now moved to Lucknow, India. Qamar has been teaching Urdu as a second language to American students for almost 25 years.