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The Most Famous

POLITICIANS from Pakistan

This page contains a list of the greatest Pakistani Politicians. The pantheon dataset contains 15,577 Politicians, 56 of which were born in Pakistan. This makes Pakistan the birth place of the 55th most number of Politicians behind Belarus and Morocco.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Pakistani Politicians of all time. This list of famous Pakistani Politicians is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Pakistani Politicians.

1. Akbar (1542 - 1605)

With an HPI of 78.33, Akbar is the most famous Pakistani Politician. His biography has been translated into 139 different languages on wikipedia.

Abu'l-Fath Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar ((1542-10-15)15 October 1542 – (1605-10-27)27 October 1605), popularly known as Akbar the Great, and also as Akbar I (Persian pronunciation: [ak.baɾ]), was the third Mughal emperor, who reigned from 1556 to 1605. Akbar succeeded his father, Humayun, under a regent, Bairam Khan, who helped the young emperor expand and consolidate Mughal domains in the Indian subcontinent. Akbar gradually enlarged the Mughal Empire to include much of the Indian subcontinent through Mughal military, political, cultural, and economic dominance. To unify the vast Mughal state, Akbar established a centralised system of administration and adopted a policy of conciliating conquered rulers through marriage and diplomacy. To preserve peace and order in a religiously and culturally diverse empire, he adopted policies that won him the support of his non-Muslim subjects, including abolishing the sectarian tax and appointing them to high civil and military posts. Under Akbar, Mughal India developed a strong and stable economy, which tripled in size and wealth, leading to commercial expansion and greater patronage of an Indo-Persian culture. Akbar's courts at Delhi, Agra, and Fatehpur Sikri attracted holy men of many faiths, poets, architects, and artisans, and become known as centres of the arts, letters, and learning. Timurid and Perso-Islamic culture began to merge and blend with indigenous Indian elements into a distinct style of Mughal arts, including painting and architecture. Disillusioned with orthodox Islam and perhaps hoping to bring about religious unity within his empire, Akbar promulgated Din-i Ilahi, a syncretic creed derived mainly from Islam and Hinduism as well as elements of Zoroastrianism and Christianity. Akbar was succeeded as emperor by his son, Prince Salim, later known as Jahangir.

2. Shah Jahan (1592 - 1666)

With an HPI of 72.34, Shah Jahan is the 2nd most famous Pakistani Politician. His biography has been translated into 85 different languages.

Mirza Shahab-ud-Din Muhammad Khurram (5 January 1592 – 22 January 1666), also known as Shah Jahan I (Persian pronunciation: [ʃɑːh d͡ʒa.ˈhɑːn]; lit. 'King of the World'), was the fifth Mughal emperor, reigning from 1628 until 1658. During his reign, the Mughals reached the peak of their architectural and cultural achievements. The third son of Jahangir (r. 1605–1627), Shah Jahan participated in the military campaigns against the Sisodia Rajputs of Mewar and the rebel Lodi nobles of the Deccan. After Jahangir's death in October 1627, Shah Jahan defeated his youngest brother Shahryar Mirza and crowned himself emperor in the Agra Fort. In addition to Shahryar, Shah Jahan executed most of his rival claimants to the throne. He commissioned many monuments, including the Red Fort, Shah Jahan Mosque and the Taj Mahal, where his favorite consort Mumtaz Mahal is entombed. In foreign affairs, Shah Jahan presided over the aggressive campaigns against the Deccan sultanates, the conflicts with the Portuguese, and the wars with the Safavids. He also suppressed several local rebellions and dealt with the devastating Deccan famine of 1630–32. In September 1657, Shah Jahan was ailing and appointed his eldest son Dara Shikoh as his successor. This nomination led to a succession crisis among his three sons, from which Shah Jahan's third son Aurangzeb (r. 1658–1707) emerged victorious and became the sixth emperor, executing all of his surviving brothers, including Crown Prince Dara Shikoh. After Shah Jahan recovered from his illness in July 1658, Aurangzeb imprisoned his father in Agra Fort from July 1658 until his death in January 1666. He was laid to rest next to his wife in the Taj Mahal. His reign is known for doing away with the liberal policies initiated by his grandfather Akbar. During Shah Jahan's time, Islamic revivalist movements like the Naqshbandi began to shape Mughal policies.

3. Benazir Bhutto (1953 - 2007)

With an HPI of 65.78, Benazir Bhutto is the 3rd most famous Pakistani Politician. Her biography has been translated into 114 different languages.

Benazir Bhutto (21 June 1953 – 27 December 2007) was a Pakistani politician and stateswoman who served as the 11th and 13th prime minister of Pakistan from 1988 to 1990 and again from 1993 to 1996. She was the first woman elected to head a democratic government in a Muslim-majority country. Ideologically a liberal and a secularist, she chaired or co-chaired the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) from the early 1980s until her assassination in 2007. Of mixed Sindhi and Kurdish parentage, Bhutto was born in Karachi to a politically important, wealthy aristocratic family. She studied at Harvard University and the University of Oxford, where she was President of the Oxford Union. Her father, the PPP leader Zulfikar Bhutto, was elected prime minister on a socialist platform in 1973. She returned to Pakistan in 1977, shortly before her father was ousted in a military coup and executed. Bhutto and her mother Nusrat took control of the PPP and led the country's Movement for the Restoration of Democracy; Bhutto was repeatedly imprisoned by Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq's military government and then self-exiled to Britain in 1984. She returned in 1986 and—influenced by Thatcherite economics—transformed the PPP's platform from a socialist to a liberal one, before leading it to victory in the 1988 election. As prime minister, her attempts at reform were stifled by conservative and Islamist forces, including President Ghulam Ishaq Khan and the powerful military. Her administration was accused of corruption and nepotism and dismissed by Khan in 1990. Intelligence services rigged that year's election to ensure a victory for the conservative Islamic Democratic Alliance (IJI), at which point Bhutto became Leader of the Opposition. After the IJI government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was also dismissed on corruption charges, Bhutto led the PPP to victory in the 1993 elections. In her second term, she oversaw economic privatisation and attempts to advance women's rights. Her government was damaged by several controversies, including the assassination of her brother Murtaza, a failed 1995 coup d'état, and a further bribery scandal involving her and her husband Asif Ali Zardari; in response, President Farooq Leghari dismissed her government. The PPP lost the 1997 election and in 1998 she went into self-exile, living between Dubai and London for the next decade. A widening corruption inquiry culminated in a 2003 conviction in a Swiss court. Following the United States–brokered negotiations with then President, general Pervez Musharraf, she returned to Pakistan in 2007 to compete in the 2008 elections; her platform emphasised civilian oversight of the military and opposition to growing Islamist violence. After a political rally in Rawalpindi, she was assassinated. The Salafi jihadi group al-Qaeda claimed responsibility, although the involvement of the Pakistani Taliban and rogue elements of the intelligence services was widely suspected. She was buried at her family mausoleum in Garhi Khuda Baksh. Bhutto was a controversial figure who remains divisive. She was often criticised as being politically inexperienced, was accused of being corrupt, and faced much opposition from Pakistan's Islamist lobby for her secularist and modernising agenda. In the early years of her career, she was nevertheless domestically popular and also attracted support from the international community, seen as a champion of democracy. Posthumously, she came to be regarded as an icon for women's rights due to her political success in a male-dominated society.

4. Kanishka (78 - 144)

With an HPI of 64.83, Kanishka is the 4th most famous Pakistani Politician. His biography has been translated into 42 different languages.

Kanishka I (Sanskrit: कनिष्क, Kaniṣka; Greco-Bactrian:Κανηϸκε Kaniške; Kharosthi: 𐨐𐨞𐨁𐨮𐨿𐨐 Ka-ṇi-ṣka; Brahmi: Kā-ṇi-ṣka), Kanishka or Kanishka the Great was an emperor of the Kushan dynasty, under whose reign (c. 127–150 CE) the empire reached its zenith. He is famous for his military, political, and spiritual achievements. A descendant of Kujula Kadphises, founder of the Kushan empire, Kanishka came to rule an empire extending from Central Asia and Gandhara to Pataliputra on the Gangetic plain. The main capital of his empire was located at Puruṣapura (Peshawar) in Gandhara, with another major capital at Mathura. Coins of Kanishka were found in Tripuri (present-day Jabalpur). Although he never converted to the religion, his conquests and patronage of Buddhism played an important role in the development of the Silk Road, and in the transmission of Mahayana Buddhism from Gandhara across the Karakoram range to China. Around 127 CE, he replaced Greek with Bactrian as the official language of administration in the empire. Earlier scholars believed that Kanishka ascended the Kushan throne in 78 CE, and that this date was used as the beginning of the Saka calendar era. However, historians no longer regard this date as that of Kanishka's accession. Falk estimates that Kanishka came to the throne in 127 CE.

5. Porus (-400 - -316)

With an HPI of 64.22, Porus is the 5th most famous Pakistani Politician. His biography has been translated into 45 different languages.

Porus or Poros (Ancient Greek: Πῶρος Pôros; fl. 326–321 BC) was an ancient Indian king whose territory spanned the region between the Jhelum River (Hydaspes) and Chenab River (Acesines), in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent. He is only mentioned in Greek sources. Credited to have been a legendary warrior with exceptional skills, Porus unsuccessfully fought against Alexander the Great in the Battle of the Hydaspes (326 BC). In the aftermath, an impressed Alexander not only reinstated him as his satrap but also granted him dominion over lands to the south-east extending as far as the Hyphasis (Beas). Porus reportedly died sometime between 321 and 315 BC.

6. Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876 - 1948)

With an HPI of 63.47, Muhammad Ali Jinnah is the 6th most famous Pakistani Politician. His biography has been translated into 93 different languages.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah (born Mahomedali Jinnahbhai; 25 December 1876 – 11 September 1948) was a barrister, politician and the founder of Pakistan. Jinnah served as the leader of the All-India Muslim League from 1913 until the inception of Pakistan on 14 August 1947, and then as the Dominion of Pakistan's first governor-general until his death. Born at Wazir Mansion in Karachi, Jinnah was trained as a barrister at Lincoln's Inn in London, England. Upon his return to India, he enrolled at the Bombay High Court, and took an interest in national politics, which eventually replaced his legal practice. Jinnah rose to prominence in the Indian National Congress in the first two decades of the 20th century. In these early years of his political career, Jinnah advocated Hindu–Muslim unity, helping to shape the 1916 Lucknow Pact between the Congress and the All-India Muslim League, in which Jinnah had also become prominent. Jinnah became a key leader in the All-India Home Rule League, and proposed a fourteen-point constitutional reform plan to safeguard the political rights of Muslims in the Indian subcontinent. In 1920, however, Jinnah resigned from the Congress when it agreed to follow a campaign of satyagraha, which he regarded as political anarchy. By 1940, Jinnah had come to believe that the Muslims of the subcontinent should have their own state to avoid the possible marginalised status they may gain in an independent Hindu–Muslim state. In that year, the Muslim League, led by Jinnah, passed the Lahore Resolution, demanding a separate nation for Indian Muslims. During the Second World War, the League gained strength while leaders of the Congress were imprisoned, and in the provincial elections held shortly after the war, it won most of the seats reserved for Muslims. Ultimately, the Congress and the Muslim League could not reach a power-sharing formula that would allow the entirety of British India to be united as a single state following independence, leading all parties to agree instead to the independence of a predominantly Hindu India, and for a Muslim-majority state of Pakistan. As the first governor-general of Pakistan, Jinnah worked to establish the new nation's government and policies, and to aid the millions of Muslim migrants who had emigrated from neighbouring India to Pakistan after the two states' independence, personally supervising the establishment of refugee camps. Jinnah died at age 71 in September 1948, just over a year after Pakistan gained independence from the United Kingdom. He left a deep and respected legacy in Pakistan. Several universities and public buildings in Pakistan bear Jinnah's name. He is revered in Pakistan as the Quaid-e-Azam ("Great Leader") and Baba-e-Qaum ("Father of the Nation"). His birthday is also observed as a national holiday in the country. According to his biographer, Stanley Wolpert, Jinnah remains Pakistan's greatest leader.

7. Muhammad bin Tughluq (1290 - 1351)

With an HPI of 63.32, Muhammad bin Tughluq is the 7th most famous Pakistani Politician. His biography has been translated into 35 different languages.

Muhammad bin Tughluq (Persian pronunciation: [mohæmmæd bon tuɡluq]; 1290 – 20 March 1351), also named Jauna Khan as Crown Prince, also known by his epithets, The Eccentric Prince, or The Mad Sultan, or The Wisest Fool was the eighteenth Sultan of Delhi. He reigned from February 1325 until his death in 1351. The sultan was the eldest son of Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq, founder of the Tughlaq dynasty. In 1321, the young Muhammad was sent by his father to the Deccan Plateau to fight a military campaign against the Kakatiya dynasty. In 1323, the future sultan successfully laid siege upon the Kakatiya capital in Warangal. This victory over King Prataparudra ended the Kakatiya dynasty. Muhammad ascended to the Delhi throne upon his father's death in 1325. Accounts by visitors of the Sultan Muhammad describe him as an "inhuman eccentric" with bizarre character. The sultan is said to have ordered the massacre of all the inhabitants of the city of Kannauj. He is also known for his wild policy swings. Muhammad bin Tughluq had an interest in medicine. He was also skilled in several languages: Persian, Hindavi, Arabic, Sanskrit and Turkic. Ibn Battuta, the famous traveler and jurist from Morocco, wrote in his book about his time at the Sultan's court.

8. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (1928 - 1979)

With an HPI of 62.72, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is the 8th most famous Pakistani Politician. His biography has been translated into 75 different languages.

Zulfikar Ali Bhutto (5 January 1928 – 4 April 1979) was a Pakistani barrister, politician, and statesman. He served as the fourth president of Pakistan from 1971 to 1973 and later as the ninth prime minister of Pakistan from 1973 to 1977. Bhutto founded the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and served as its chairman until his execution. Born in Sindh as a shia muslim and educated at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Oxford, Bhutto trained as a barrister at Lincoln's Inn before entering politics. Initially, he was a cabinet member during president Iskandar Ali Mirza's tenure, holding various ministries during president Muhammad Ayub Khan's military rule from 1958. Bhutto became the Foreign Minister in 1963, advocating for Operation Gibraltar in Kashmir, leading to the 1965 war with India. Following the Tashkent Declaration, he was dismissed from the government. Bhutto established the PPP in 1967, focusing on an Islamic socialist agenda, and contested the 1970 general election. The Awami League and PPP were unable to agree on power transfer, leading to civil unrest and the creation of Bangladesh. After Pakistan's loss in the 1971 war against Bangladesh, Bhutto assumed the presidency in December 1971, imposing emergency rule. During his presidency, Bhutto secured the release of 93,000 prisoners of war and reclaimed five thousand square miles (13,000 km2) of Indian-held territory through the Simla Agreement. He strengthened diplomatic ties with China and Saudi Arabia, recognized Bangladesh, and hosted the second Organisation of the Islamic Conference in Lahore in 1974. Bhutto's government drafted the current constitution of Pakistan in 1973, after which he transitioned to the prime minister's office. He played a crucial role in initiating the country's nuclear program. However, his policies, including extensive nationalisation, led to economic stagnation. Despite winning the 1977 parliamentary elections, Bhutto faced allegations of widespread vote rigging, sparking violence across the country. On 5 July 1977, Bhutto was deposed in a military coup by army chief Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. Controversially tried and executed in 1979, Bhutto's legacy remains contentious, praised for nationalism and a secular internationalist agenda, yet criticized for political repression, economic challenges, and human rights abuses. He is often considered one of Pakistan's greatest leaders. His party, the PPP, continues to be a significant political force in Pakistan, with his daughter Benazir Bhutto serving twice as Prime Minister, and his son-in-law, Asif Ali Zardari, becoming president.

9. Aga Khan III (1877 - 1957)

With an HPI of 60.55, Aga Khan III is the 9th most famous Pakistani Politician. His biography has been translated into 33 different languages.

Sultan Muhammad Shah (Arabic: سلطان محمد شاه, romanized: Sulṭān Muḥammad Shāh; 2 November 1877 – 11 July 1957), known as Aga Khan III (Persian: آقا خان سوم, romanized: Āqā Khān Suwwūm), was the 48th imam of the Nizari Ism'aili branch of Shia Islam. He was one of the founders and the first permanent president of the All-India Muslim League (AIML). His goal was the advancement of Muslim agendas and the protection of Muslim rights in British India. The League, until the late 1930s, was not a large organisation but represented landed and commercial Muslim interests as well as advocating for British education during the British Raj. There were similarities in Aga Khan's views on education with those of other Muslim social reformers, but the scholar Shenila Khoja-Moolji argues that he also expressed a distinct interest in advancing women's education for women themselves. Aga Khan called on the British Raj to consider Muslims to be a separate nation within India, the famous 'Two Nation Theory'. Even after he resigned as president of the AIML in 1912, he still exerted a major influence on its policies and agendas. He was nominated to represent India at the League of Nations in 1932 and served as President of the League of Nations from 1937 to 1938.

10. Ranjit Singh (1780 - 1839)

With an HPI of 59.69, Ranjit Singh is the 10th most famous Pakistani Politician. His biography has been translated into 45 different languages.

Ranjit Singh (13 November 1780 – 27 June 1839), popularly known as Sher-e-Punjab or "Lion of Punjab", was the first Maharaja of the Sikh Empire, which ruled the northwest Indian subcontinent in the early half of the 19th century. He survived smallpox in infancy but lost sight in his left eye. He fought his first battle alongside his father at age 10. After his father died around Ranjit's early teenage years, Ranjit subsequently fought several wars to expel the Afghans throughout his teenage years. At the age of 21, he was proclaimed the "Maharaja of Punjab". His empire grew in the Punjab region under his leadership through 1839. Prior to his rise, the Punjab region had numerous warring misls (confederacies), twelve of which were under Sikh rulers and one Muslim. Ranjit Singh successfully absorbed and united the Sikh misls and took over other local kingdoms to create the Sikh Empire. He repeatedly defeated invasions by outside armies, particularly those arriving from Afghanistan, and established friendly relations with the British. Ranjit Singh's reign introduced reforms, modernisation, investment into infrastructure and general prosperity. His Khalsa army and government included Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims and Europeans. His legacy includes a period of Sikh cultural and artistic renaissance, including the rebuilding of the Harmandir Sahib in Amritsar as well as other major gurudwaras, including Takht Sri Patna Sahib, Bihar and Hazur Sahib Nanded, Maharashtra under his sponsorship. Ranjit Singh was succeeded by his son Kharak Singh. Ranjit Singh also founded the Order of the Propitious Star of Punjab in 1837.

People

Pantheon has 56 people classified as politicians born between 550 BC and 1988. Of these 56, 20 (35.71%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living politicians include Imran Khan, Manmohan Singh, and Arif Alvi. The most famous deceased politicians include Akbar, Shah Jahan, and Benazir Bhutto. As of April 2022, 6 new politicians have been added to Pantheon including Imran Khan, Khema, and J. B. Kripalani.