Founders of Pakistan

Quid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948) Politician and the founder of Pakistan Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah was born at Karachi on December 25, 1876. He was a lawyer and politician who fought for the cause of India's independence from Britain, then moved on to found a Muslim state in Pakistan in 1947. Jinnah entered politics in India in 1905 and by 1917 his charisma and diplomacy had made him a national leader and the most visible supporter of Hindu-Muslim unity. His strong belief in gradual and peaceful change was in contrast to the civil disobedience strategies of Mohandas Gandhi, and in the '30s Jinnah broke from the Indian National Congress to focus on an independent Muslim state. In 1940 he demanded a separate nation in Pakistan and by 1947 he managed to get it from the British and India. Through civil wars, a rotten economy and millions of displaced refugees, Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah ("the great leader") pretty much built a country from scratch. For more details click here

Sir Alama Mohammad Iqbal (1877–1938) Poet, philosopher, and political leader Allama Iqbal was born at Silkot on November 9, 1877 and studied at Government College, Lahore, Cambridge, and the Univ. of Munich, and then he taught philosophy at Government College and practiced law. He was elected (1927) to the Punjab provincial legislature and served (1930) as president of the Muslim League. A staunch advocate of Indian nationalism, he became a supporter of an independent homeland for India's Muslims and he is regarded as the spiritual founder of Pakistan. Iqbal was the foremost Muslim thinker of his period, and in his many volumes of poetry (written in Urdu and Persian) and essays, he urged a regeneration of Islam through the love of God and the active development of the self. He was a firm believer in freedom and the creative force that freedom can exert on men. He was knighted in 1922. His works include The Secrets of the Self (1915, tr. 1940), and Javid-nama (1934, tr. 1966).