| English Title: | National Anthem of Pakistan |
| Prefix: | National |
| Country: | Pakistan |
| Author: | Abu Al-Asar Hafeez Jalandhari |
| Lyrics Date: | June 1952 |
| Composer: | Ahmed Ghulam Ali Chagla |
| Music Date: | 21 August 1949 |
| Alt Title: | |
| En Alt Title: | "Blessed Be the Sacred Land" |
| Adopted: | 16 August 1954 |
| Successor: | Amar Sonar Bangla (1971, in Bangladesh) |
| Sound: | National-Anthem-_instrumental.ogg |
| Sound Title: | Government of Pakistan instrumental version |
The National Anthem of Pakistan, also known by its incipit "The Sacred Land", is the national anthem of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and formerly the Dominion of Pakistan.[1] First composed by Ahmad G. Chagla in 1949, lyrics in Persified Urdu were later written by Hafeez Jalandhari in 1952. It was broadcast publicly for the first time on Radio Pakistan on 13 August 1954, sung by Jalandhari himself and officially adopted on 16 August 1954 by the Interior Ministry of the Government of Pakistan.
After officially being adopted,[2] it was recorded in the same year by eleven major singers of Pakistan including Ahmad Rushdi, Kaukab Jahan, Rasheeda Begum, Najam Ara, Naseema Shaheen, Zawar Hussain, Akhtar Abbas, Ghulam Dastagir, Anwar Zaheer, and Akhtar Wasi Ali.[3]
In early 1948, A. R. Ghani, a Muslim from South Africa's Transvaal, offered two prizes of five thousand rupees each for the poet and composer of a new national anthem for the newly independent state of Pakistan. The prizes were announced through a government press advertisement published in June 1948. In December 1948, the Government of Pakistan established the National Anthem Committee (NAC) with the task of coming up with the composition and lyrics for the official national anthem of Pakistan. The NAC was initially chaired by the Information Secretary, Sheikh Muhammad Ikram, and its members included several politicians, poets and musicians, including Abdur Rab Nishtar, Ahmad G. Chagla and Hafeez Jalandhari. The NAC encountered early difficulties in finding suitable music and lyrics.
When President Sukarno of Indonesia became the first foreign head of state to visit Pakistan on 30 January 1950, there was no Pakistani national anthem to be played. In 1950, the impending state visit of the Shah of Iran added urgency to the matter and resulted in the government of Pakistan asking the NAC to submit a state anthem without further delay. The NAC chairman, then Federal Minister for Education, Fazlur Rahman, asked several poets and composers to write lyrics but none of the submitted works were deemed suitable. The NAC also examined several different tunes and eventually selected the one presented by Ahmed G. Chagla and submitted it for formal approval.[4] On 21 August 1950, the Government of Pakistan adopted Chagla's tune for the national anthem.[5]
The national anthem, without lyrics, was performed for the first time for a foreign head of state on the state visit of the Shah of Iran to Pakistan in Karachi on 1 March 1950 by a Pakistan Navy band.
It was later played for Prime Minister Liaquat Ali Khan during his official visit to the United States on 3 May 1950. It was played before the NAC on 10 August 1950.[6] Official recognition to the national anthem, however, was not given until August 1954.[6] The NAC distributed records of the composed tune amongst prominent poets, who responded by writing and submitting several hundred songs for evaluation by the NAC. Eventually, the lyrics written by Hafeez Jalandhari were approved and the new national anthem was broadcast publicly for the first time on Radio Pakistan on 13 August 1954, sung by Hafeez Jalandhari himself.[7] Official approval was announced by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on 16 August 1954. The composer, Ahmed G. Chagla, died in 1953, before the new national anthem was officially adopted. In 1955, there was a performance of the national anthem involving 11 major singers of Pakistan, including Ahmad Rushdi, Kaukab Jahan, Rasheeda Begum, Najam Ara, Naseema Shaheen, Zawar Hussain, Akhtar Abbas, Ghulam Dastagir, Anwar Zaheer and Akhtar Wasi Ali.[8] [9] [10]
In 2021, then Interior Minister Fawad Chaudhry announced that the national anthem will be re-recorded with better quality.[11] The project was completed in 2022 during Shehbaz Sharif’s tenure.[12] 155 singers, 48 musicians and 6 bandmasters participated in the re-recording, it was released on 14 August, 2022.[13]
The national anthem is a rendering of a three-stanza composition with a tune based on eastern music but arranged in such a manner that it can be easily played by foreign bands.
The music, composed by the Pakistani musician and composer Ahmad G. Chagla in 1949, reflects his background in both eastern and western music. Typically twenty-one musical instruments[5] and thirty-eight different tones are used to play the national anthem,[14] the duration of which is usually around 80 seconds.[2] [15]
The lyrics are in classical High-Urdu, written by the Pakistani Urdu-language poet Hafeez Jalandhari in 1952. No verse in the three stanzas is repeated.[2] The lyrics have heavy Persian poetic vocabulary,[16] and the only words derived from Sanskrit are "ka" (Urdu: کا in Urdu pronounced as /kaˑ/ 'of'), and "tu" (Urdu: تو in Urdu pronounced as /tuˑ/ 'thou').[17]