First National Anthem was written by Hafeez Jalandhari
Date: June 1952
Firstly used: 13 August 1954
"Pak sar zamin" redirects here. For other uses, see Pak sar zamin (disambiguation)
The Pakistan "Qaumi Taranah" (Urdu: قومی
ترانہ, "National Anthem"), also known
as "Pāk
Sarzamin" (Urdu: پاک سرزمین, pronounced (Pak
Sarr Zameen); "Thy Sacred Land"), is the national anthem of the Islamic
Republic of Pakistan and formerly the Dominion of Pakistan.
It was written by Hafeez Jalandhari in 1952 and the music
was produced by Ahmad G. Chagla in
1949, preceding the lyrics. It is written in the Persian Language.
It was officially adopted as Pakistan's national anthem in
August 1954 and was recorded in the same year by eleven prominent 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.
History
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. On 21 August 1950, the Government of Pakistan adopted Chagla's tune for the national anthem.
The 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. Official recognition of the national anthem, however, was not given until August 1954. 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 Jullundhri were approved and the new national anthem was broadcast publicly for the first time on Radio Pakistan on 13 August 1954, sung by Hafeez Jullundhri himself. 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 prominent 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.
In 2021, Interior Minister at the time Fawad Chaudhry announced that the Qaumi Tarana will be re-recorded with better quality. The project was completed in 2022 during Shehbaz Sharif’s tenure. 155 singers, 48 musicians, and 6 bandmasters participated in the re-recording, which was released on 14 August 2022.
