25 Informative Facts About Pakistan

Pakistan’s history has been extremely tumultuous ever since its founding in August 1947. And these interesting facts about Pakistan will provide us with some fascinating knowledge about both its past and current.

Pakistan facts

1. In Pakistan, children are taught in schools that all Muslim invaders are heroes of Islamic history. For instance, even today, the first Muslim invasion of Sindh in AD 712 by a 17-year-old general from the Umayyad dynasty of Arabia, Muhammad bin Qasim, is celebrated by the government.

2. Sindh was the first province in undivided India to support the Pakistan resolution moved by the Jiye Sindh Movement pioneer Ghulam Murtaza Shah Syed on March 3, 1943.

3. The two biggest corporate conglomerates in Pakistan are owned by the army, namely the Army Welfare Trust and Fauji Foundation.

4. Afghanistan was the only country to oppose Pakistan’s application for membership of the United Nations in 1947.

5. The Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was the first foreign head of state to visit Pakistan in 1950, and subsequently, both countries entered into a friendship treaty, the first ever to be signed by Pakistan.

Interesting facts related to Islamic Republic of Pakistan.

6. The former dictator of Pakistan, General Zia ul-Haq, was educated at Delhi’s most prestigious St. Stephen’s College before getting a commission in the Royal Indian Army in 1942. He was a captain at the time of the creation of Pakistan in 1947.

7. Pakistan has the distinction of being the first Muslim nation to recognize the People’s Republic of China.

8. Gwadar, the Baloch port at the Persian Gulf’s mouth, which Pakistan purchased from Oman for $3 million in 1958.

9. On January 25, 1948, the First Pakistan Battalion was raised. It had four companies, named:

• Khalid, after Khalid ibn Waleed, the great Arab general who raced through a thousand miles of desert and helped defeat the Byzantines, opening the way to Jerusalem in 637.

• Tariq, after Tariq ibn Ziyad, who defeated the Goths at Guadalete in 711.

• Qasim, after Muhammad Bin Qasim, who brought the first Arab army to the Indian subcontinent in 712 AD, defeating King Dahir of Sindh.

• Salahuddin, after Saladin, who reconquered Jerusalem in 1187 AD.

10. Although Pakistan was created on August 14, 1947, the British did not formally leave the country till February 1948. In fact, the last of the British troops to leave the shores of Pakistan were the 2nd Black Watch (Royal Highland Regiment).

11. The husband of Benazir Bhutto, Asif Ali Zardari’s civilian government, was the first one in Pakistan history to finish a full five-year term.

12. Ironically, Liaquat Ali Khan, the first PM of Pakistan, and Benazir Bhutto, the first woman PM of Pakistan, were both assassinated in Rawalpindi.

13. The first president of Pakistan, Iskander Mirza, was a direct descendant of Mir Jafar, the infamous commander who had betrayed Siraj ud-Daulah to the British in the Battle of Plassey in 1757.

14. Field Marshal Ayub Khan has so far been the only five-star general in Pakistan’s military history.

15. The sixth-largest armed forces in the world are those of Pakistan, known as Musallah-e-Afwaj-e-Pakistan in the native Urdu language. Pakistan is also the only Muslim country with a nuclear arsenal.

16. The idea of Pakistan was primarily conceived by an Urdu-speaking, upper-caste elite group fearing social decline in undivided India. Made up of aristocratic literati, this group embodied the legacy and nostalgia of the Mughal Empire.

17. Karachi was the first capital of Pakistan. But in 1960, the federal capital shifted from Karachi to Rawalpindi. And finally, in 1967, the capital was transferred once again to Islamabad.

18. Since its inception in 1947, Pakistan has had three constitutions (1956, 1962, 1973) and three military coups d’état:

• In 1958, the coup was led by General Ayub Khan.

• In 1977, another military coup was orchestrated by General Zia ul-Haq.

• In October 1999, the civilian government, led by Nawaz Sharif, was overthrown by General Musharraf.

19. The inventor of the acronym “Pakistan,” Choudhry Rahmat Ali, traveled to Pakistan in 1948. But he felt uncomfortable because the security services were always following him. The Pakistan movement’s leaders were even accused of being sellouts by him after he lost hope. Angry, he left for London and would never come back. In 1951, he passed away there.

20. According to the terms of Partition, Pakistan was given 30% of British India’s army, 40% of its navy, and 20% of its air force.

21. In the 1971 war with India, the Pakistani army surrendered in Dhaka to an Indian Sikh general (Lt Gen. Aurora) after negotiating terms with an Indian Jew (Lieutenant General J. F. R. Jacob), both of whom reported to an Indian army chief who was Parsi (Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw).

22. The capital of Pakistan, Islamabad, was designed by a Greek architect, C. A. Doxiadis.

23. The Murree Brewery of Pakistan is one of the first breweries in the Indian Subcontinent. The brewery’s first manager, Edward Dyer, was the father of the infamous Colonel Reginald Dyer, the Butcher of Amritsar, who had ordered the massacre at Jallianwala Bagh in April 1919.

24. Begum Ra’ana Liaquat Ali Khan, the wife of Pakistan’s first prime minister, was not only the first woman diplomat of Pakistan. But also the first and only woman governor of Sindh.

25. In Lahore, Minar-e-Pakistan is a 60-meter-high tower that marks the place where the All India Muslim League adopted a resolution for the creation of Pakistan on March 23, 1940.

I hope you like this article and gained some informative facts related to Pakistan. Thanks for reading. Jai Hind.

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