The Islamic Republic of Pakistan

 The Islamic Republic of Pakistan;

Pakistan, or the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a state in South Asia. It is the fifth-most populated nation, with more than 241.5 million inhabitants, boasting the second-largest population of Muslims as of 2023. Islamabad serves as the country's capital, and Karachi is its biggest city and financial hub. Pakistan is the 33rd-largest nation in terms of size. Surrounded by the Arabian Sea in the south, the Gulf of Oman in the southwest, and the Sir Creek in the southeast, it shares land boundaries with India in the east; Afghanistan in the west; Iran in the southwest; and China in the northeast. It has a maritime border with Oman in the Gulf of Oman, and is separated from Tajikistan in the northwest by Afghanistan's thin Wakhan Corridor.

Pakistan is home to a number of ancient civilisations, such as the 8,500-year-old Neolithic settlement of Mehrgarh in Balochistan, the Indus Valley Bronze Age Civilisation and the ancient civilisation of Gandhara.The lands that make up the contemporary state of Pakistan were the domain of various empires and dynasties, such as the Achaemenid, the Maurya, the Kushan, the Gupta; the Umayyad Caliphate in its southern territories, the Hindu Shahis, the Ghaznavids, the Delhi Sultanate, the Samma, the Shah Mirs, the Mughals, and most recently, the British Raj from 1858 to 1947.

Inspired by the Pakistan Movement, which demanded a homeland for British India's Muslims, and All-India Muslim League electoral victories in 1946, Pakistan became independent in 1947 following the Partition of the British Indian Empire, which granted its Muslim majority provinces separate statehood and was preceded by a unprecedented mass migration and bloodshed. Originally a Dominion of the British Commonwealth, Pakistan formally constitutionally drafted its constitution in 1956, and became an avowed Islamic republic. In 1971, the East Pakistan exclave broke away as the new nation of Bangladesh following a nine-month civil war. During the next four decades, Pakistan has been governed by governments that oscillated between civilian and military, democratic and authoritarian, relatively secular and Islamist. Pakistan is a middle power country, with the seventh-largest standing army in the world.

It is an acknowledged nuclear-weapons state, and is classified among the emerging and growth-leading economies, with a vast and fast-developing middle class. Pakistan's political past after independence has been marked by times of considerable economic and military development and also times of political and economic chaos. It is a racially and linguistically diversified nation, with equally diversified geography and wildlife. The nation still grapples with problems such as poverty, illiteracy, corruption, and terrorism. Pakistan is a member of the United Nations, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the Commonwealth of Nations, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, and the Islamic Military Counter-Terrorism Coalition, and is a designated major non-NATO ally of the United States.

Etymology

It was named Pakistan by Choudhry Rahmat Ali, an activist of the Pakistan Movement, who in January 1933 first published it (originally as "Pakstan") in a pamphlet Now or Never, as an acronym.

Rahmat Ali defined: "It is made up of letters derived from the names of all our homelands, Indian and Asian, Panjab, Afghania, Kashmir, Sindh, and Baluchistan." He further said, "Pakistan is both a Persian and Urdu word. It signifies the land of the Paks, the spiritually clean and pure." Etymologists observe that پاک pāk, is 'pure' in Persian and Pashto and the Persian suffix Pakistan signifies 'land' or 'place of'. Rahmat Ali's idea of Pakistan applied only to the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent. He also suggested the name "Banglastan" for the Muslim regions of Bengal and "Osmanistan" for Hyderabad State, and a political union of the three. 

Pakistan History;

Prehistory and antiquity;

A few of the oldest ancient human civilizations in South Asia had their origins in regions including modern-day Pakistan. The earliest known residents in the area were Soanian in the Lower Paleolithic, whose artefacts have been discovered in the Soan Valley of Punjab The Indus valley, which takes up most of the current-day Pakistan, was the location of a number of successive ancient civilizations such as the Neolithic (7000–4300 BCE) settlement of Mehrgarh and the 5,000-year urban history of South Asia to the various locations of the Indus Valley Civilisation, such as Mohenjo-daro and Harappa. After the fall of the Indus valley civilization, Indo-Aryan tribes migrated to the Punjab from Central Asia in a series of migrations during the Vedic period (1500–500 BCE) with their unique religious practices and traditions that merged with the indigenous culture.

The Indo-Aryan religion and culture of the former Bactria–Margiana culture and native Harappan Indus faith of the old Indus Valley civilization later led to Vedic culture and tribes. Among them, most prominent was Gandhara civilization, which thrived at the confluence of India, Central Asia, and the Middle East, linking trade routes and absorbing cultural influences from various civilizations. The early Vedic culture was an early tribal, pastoral society based in the Indus Valley, of present-day Pakistan. It was during this time that the Vedas, the oldest of Hindu scriptures, were written. Classical period Standing Buddha from Gandhara (1st–2nd century CE)

Classical period:

The western parts of Pakistan were absorbed into Achaemenid Empire circa 517 BCE.

In 326 BCE, Alexander the Great conquered the area by defeating several local kings, including most famously, King Porus, at Jhelum.

It was succeeded by the Maurya Empire, established by Chandragupta Maurya and expanded by Ashoka the Great, until 185 BCE. The Indo-Greek Kingdom founded by Demetrius of Bactria (180–165 BCE) encompassed Gandhara and Punjab and reached its fullest extent under Menander (165–150 BCE), flourishing the Greco-Buddhist culture of the land. Taxila possessed one of the oldest universities and centres of advanced learning in the world, founded in the late Vedic era in the 6th century BCE. Ancient university was accounted for by invading forces of Alexander the Great as well as described by Chinese pilgrims in 4th or 5th century CE In its peak time, Rai dynasty (489-632 CE) controlled Sindh and the vicinity. Medieval time Arab conqueror Muhammad ibn Qasim overpowered Sindh and some areas of Punjab in 711 CE. Pakistan's official chronology by the Pakistan government puts forward this as the period when Pakistan's foundation was established.

Early medieval (642–1219 CE) period saw Islam expanding in the subcontinent.

Medieval period:

Islam arrived before in the subcontinent starting in the 8th century, but the subcontinent of Pakistan consisted of a multiplicity of a variety of faiths like Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Zoroastrianism. Sufi missionaries were instrumental in converting most of the population of the region to Islam during this time. With the defeat of the Turk and Hindu Shahi dynasties that ruled Kabul Valley, Gandhara, and western Punjab from the 7th to 11th centuries CE, a series of successive Muslim empires dominated the region, such as the Ghaznavid Empire (975–1187 CE), the Ghorid Kingdom, and the Delhi Sultanate (1206–1526 CE). The Lodi dynasty, the final of the Delhi Sultanate, was overthrown by the Mughal Empire (1526–1857 CE). Makli Necropolis, a UNESCO World Heritage Site emerged as a prominent burial site during the Samma dynasty The Mughals brought with them Persian literature and high culture, laying the foundation of Indo-Persian culture in the subcontinent. In the area of present-day Pakistan, main cities during Mughal times were Multan, Lahore, Peshawar and Thatta, which were selected as the location for grand Mughal architecture. In the early 16th century, the area was still under the control of the Mughal Empire.

During the 18th century, the gradual decline of the Mughal Empire was accelerated by the rise of its arch-rivals the Maratha Confederacy and then the Sikh Empire, and by invasions from Nader Shah of Iran in 1739 and the Durrani Empire of Afghanistan in 1759. The increasing political hegemony of the British in Bengal still had not reached the lands of contemporary Pakistan.

Colonial rule;

Colonial rule Main articles: British India, British Raj, Aligarh Movement, and Two-nation theory Sir Syed Ahmad Khan (1817–1898), on whose vision Pakistan was based Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948) became the first Governor-General of Pakistan and leader of the Pakistan Movement. None of present-day Pakistan was under British control until 1839 when Karachi, a tiny fishing village ruled by Talpurs of Sindh with a mud fort defending the harbour, was captured, and utilized as an enclave with a port and military base for the First Afghan War that followed.

The rest of Sindh was purchased in 1843, and later, by a series of wars and treaties, the East India Company, and then, after the post-Sepoy Mutiny (1857–1858), direct rule by Queen Victoria of the British Empire, purchased most of the territory.

Eatering battles featured those with Baloch Talpur dynasty, resolved by the Battle of Miani (1843) in Sindh, Anglo-Sikh Wars (1845–1849), and the Anglo-Afghan Wars (1839–1919).

By 1893, entire modern-day Pakistan was within the British Indian Empire, and they stayed there up to the period of independence in 1947.

Modern Pakistan, under British control, was largely comprised of the Sind Division, Punjab Province, and Baluchistan Agency. The country also contained other princely states, the most extensive of which was Bahawalpur.

The main military resistance against the British in the area was the revolt known as the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857. Divergence in relations between Hinduism and Islam had created high tensions in British India, which saw religious violence erupt.

The language dispute also worsened Hindu-Muslim tensions.[74][88] A Muslim intellectual movement, led by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan to respond to the Hindu renaissance, promoted the two-nation theory and resulted in the formation of the All-India Muslim League in 1906. In March 1929, as a counter to the Nehru Report, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the creator of Pakistan, issued his fourteen points, which encompassed suggestions for the protection of the Muslim minority's interests in a single India. These were rejected.

Allama Iqbal, in his 29 December 1930 speech, promoted the joining together of the Muslim-majority provinces of North-West India, such as Punjab, North-West Frontier Province, Sind, and Baluchistan.

The feeling that British provincial governments under Congress leadership had ignored the Muslim League between 1937 and 1939 prompted Jinnah and other Muslim League leaders to adopt the two-nation theory. This resulted in the Lahore Resolution of 1940, introduced by Sher-e-Bangla A.K. Fazlul Haque, or the Pakistan Resolution.

In 1942, Britain was experiencing significant stress during World War II, and India was threatened directly by Japanese troops. Britain had promised voluntary independence to India in return for war support. But this promise came with a rider that no region of British India would be forced to join the ensuing dominion, which could be seen as support for an independent Muslim state. Congress led by Mahatma Gandhi initiated the Quit India Movement, calling for an immediate withdrawal of British rule. On the contrary, the Muslim League decided to ally itself with the UK's war efforts, thus fostering the potential for a Muslim state.