≡ About Pakistan
The history of Pakistan for times preceding 1947 is congruous with that of India, Afghanistan, and Iran.
The oldest evidence of human life (8,000 to 6,000 years ago) in present day Pakistan was found in the Soan River valley of the Pothohar region of Punjab. This human activity, called Soan Culture, was discovered in the form of pebble tools scattered long the river. In the Peshawar Valley of ancient Gandhara, there is evidence of existence of Stone Age men found at Sanghao near Mardan. Stone tools and burnt bones dated 7,000 years were found near caves.
Islam was brought to this area by the saint Kwajah Ghareeb Nawaz Ajmeri prior to the 8th century.
By 1930, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, who ultimately led the movement for a separate state, had grown weary of Indian politics and particularly of getting mainstream parties like the Congress (of which he was a member much longer than the League) to be sensitive to minority priorities. Among the first to make the demand for a separate state was the writer/philosopher Allama Iqbal, who, in his presidential address to the 1930 convention of the Muslim League said that he felt that a separate nation for Muslims was essential in an otherwise Hindu-dominated South Asia. The Sindh Assembly passed a resolution making it a demand in 1935.
Iqbal, Jauhar and others then worked hard to draft Mohammad Ali Jinnah to lead the movement for this new nation. Jinnah later went on to become known as the Father of the Nation, with Pakistan officially giving him the title Quaid-e-Azam or “Great Leader”.
The name “Pakistan” was coined by Cambridge student and Muslim nationalist Choudhary Rahmat Ali. He devised the word and first published it on January 28, 1933 in the pamphlet “Now or Never”. He designed it as an acronym formed from the names of the “homelands” of Muslims in South Asia. (P for Punjab, A for the Afghan areas of the region, K for Kashmir, S for Sindh and tan for Balochistan, thus forming ‘Pakstan.’ An “i” was later added to the Anglicized version of the name to ease pronunciation, producing “Pakistan”.) The word also captured in the Persian language the concepts of “pak”, meaning “pure”, and “stan”, meaning “land” or “home”, thus giving it the meaning “Land of the Pure”. Arabic-speaking countries refer to Pakistan as Bakstaan, since the Arabic language lacks the phoneme “p”.
Since it’s independence, Pakistan has begun its own distinct and colorful history with numerous events pertaining to gang violence, war with India, and regime change.
