Pakistan

The Indus, or Harappan, civilisation was a Bronze Age society whose two great centres — Mohenjo-daro in Sindh and Harappa in Punjab, some 640 km apart — both lie within modern Pakistan. Its mature urban phase is usually dated to roughly 2600–1900 BCE, contemporary with ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia. The civilisation consisted of these two large cities and more than a hundred towns and villages spread across the north-western subcontinent.

The cities astonish for their order. Mohenjo-daro, home to perhaps 35,000 people, was laid out on a grid of baked-brick houses with well-ordered wastewater drainage, covered sewers, public wells and a monumental Great Bath atop its citadel. Standardised weights and measures and a uniform material culture across hundreds of settlements point to extensive trade and shared administration. The Harappans worked copper and bronze, fired distinctive seals, and traded as far as Mesopotamia.

They left a script of short inscriptions that has never been deciphered, so their language, beliefs and rulers remain unknown. From around 1900 BCE the cities were gradually abandoned, a decline now linked chiefly to climate change and weakening monsoon-fed rivers rather than any single invasion. Rediscovered by archaeologists in 1921–22, Mohenjo-daro was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1980, the earliest chapter of Pakistan's recorded past.

Turning points

1. c. 2600 BCEFormation

   Mature phase of the Indus cities

   Mohenjo-daro, Harappa and hundreds of other settlements reach their peak, with grid-planned streets, advanced drainage and standardised weights across a vast trading network.

   [1] [2]

2. c. 2600 BCECulture & Ideas

   Mohenjo-daro flourishes

   On the right bank of the Indus in Sindh, Mohenjo-daro becomes one of the civilisation's largest cities, renowned for its citadel and Great Bath; it is today a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

   [3] [2]

3. c. 1900 BCECatastrophe

   Decline of the Harappan cities

   The major cities are gradually abandoned as weakening monsoons and shifting rivers undermine the agricultural base, ending the civilisation's urban phase.

   ↗See the data

   [1]

From around 518 BCE the Achaemenid Persian kings drew the Indus lands into their empire as among its richest and most populous provinces, introducing centralised administration and Aramaic script. In 326 BCE Alexander the Great crossed the passes and defeated the local king Porus at the Battle of the Hydaspes on the Jhelum, carrying his army to the easternmost edge of his conquests before turning back. His departure left a Hellenistic imprint on the region's art and cities.

Soon after, Chandragupta Maurya absorbed the Indus territories into the first great Indian empire, and under his grandson Ashoka in the third century BCE the region embraced Buddhism. The area's centre of gravity was Gandhara, the kingdom around modern Peshawar (Purushapura) and Taxila (Takshashila), whose famed centre of learning drew scholars for a thousand years and is today a UNESCO World Heritage Site illustrating successive Persian, Greek and Central Asian influences.

Gandhara reached its zenith under the Kushans, a Central Asian dynasty whose greatest ruler, Kanishka, made Peshawar his capital in the early centuries CE. A patron of Buddhism, Kanishka promoted Mahayana teaching and convened a great Buddhist council. Under Kushan rule the Gandhara school of art flourished, depicting the Buddha in human form for the first time with the flowing drapery and classical features of Greco-Roman sculpture — a unique synthesis that radiated along the Silk Road into Central Asia and China.

Turning points

1. c. 518 BCEColonisation

   Achaemenid Persia annexes the Indus lands

   The Persian empire incorporates the Indus region as among its wealthiest provinces, bringing centralised administration and Aramaic writing to the area.

   ↗See the data

   [7] [4]

2. 326 BCEWar & Rupture

   Alexander defeats Porus at the Hydaspes

   Alexander the Great crosses the Indus passes and defeats King Porus on the Jhelum, marking the easternmost reach of his empire before his army turns homeward.

   ↗See the data

   [4] [7]

3. c. 127 CECulture & Ideas

   Kanishka and the Gandhara golden age

   Under the Kushan emperor Kanishka, ruling from Peshawar, Mahayana Buddhism and the Greco-Buddhist Gandhara school of art flourish, depicting the Buddha in human form.

   [6] [4]

Figures of the era

Islam reached the subcontinent through the Indus when, in 711 CE, the young Umayyad general Muhammad ibn Qasim conquered Sindh and southern Punjab, planting the faith in what is now Pakistan. Over the following centuries waves of Turkic and Afghan conquerors followed the same north-western route. From 1206 the Delhi Sultanate, a Persianate Islamic state ruled in turn by five dynasties, dominated much of the region, deepening the Muslim character of the Indus plains and leaving an enduring imprint on language, law and architecture.

In 1526 Babur, a Central Asian prince descended from Timur and Genghis Khan, defeated the last Lodi sultan and founded the Mughal Empire, which fused Persian, Islamic and Indian culture into one of the wealthiest realms of its age. Lahore became a favoured imperial capital. Under Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jahan the Mughals raised the Lahore Fort and the Shalimar Gardens — together a UNESCO World Heritage Site testifying to Mughal artistry at its height — while at Thatta in Sindh the necropolis of Makli grew into one of the largest in the world.

The synthesis reached its architectural climax under Aurangzeb, who between 1671 and 1673 built the vast Badshahi Mosque opposite the Lahore Fort, for centuries the largest mosque in the world. Yet his long wars in the Deccan, heavy taxation and religious friction strained the empire. After his death in 1707 Mughal authority fragmented rapidly, opening the Indus lands to regional powers — Sikhs in Punjab, the talpurs in Sindh — and ultimately to European intrusion.

Turning points

1. 711 CEReligion

   Muhammad ibn Qasim conquers Sindh

   An Umayyad army under Muhammad ibn Qasim conquers Sindh and southern Punjab, bringing Islam to the Indus lands for the first time.

   [7]

2. 1206Politics & Power

   Rise of the Delhi Sultanate

   Muslim dynasties ruling from Delhi extend their dominion over the Indus plains, deepening the region's Islamic culture over three centuries.

   [7]

3. 1526War & Rupture

   Babur founds the Mughal Empire

   Babur's victory ends the Delhi Sultanate and establishes the Mughal Empire, which makes Lahore one of its great capitals.

   ↗See the data

   [8] [7]

4. 1671–1673Religion

   Badshahi Mosque built at Lahore

   Emperor Aurangzeb commissions the monumental Badshahi Mosque opposite the Lahore Fort, for centuries the largest mosque in the world and a landmark of Mughal Lahore.

   [9] [8]

Figures of the era

The British East India Company annexed Sindh in 1843 and the Sikh kingdom of Punjab in 1849, bringing the future Pakistan under colonial rule. After the rebellion of 1857 the Crown abolished Company rule and governed India directly as the British Raj. The Raj built canals, railways and a unified administration across the Indus plains, but its rule was extractive and its priorities imperial, and it left a region of immense diversity bound into a single colonial order.

From the late nineteenth century, India's Muslims grew anxious about their place in a future independent India dominated by a Hindu majority. The All-India Muslim League, founded in 1906, became the vehicle of their politics, and under Muhammad Ali Jinnah — a barrister once hailed as an apostle of Hindu-Muslim unity — it moved towards the conviction that Muslims formed a distinct nation. This 'two-nation theory' would become the ideological foundation of Pakistan.

The demand crystallised on 23 March 1940, when the Muslim League, meeting in Lahore, adopted the Lahore Resolution calling for independent states in the Muslim-majority regions of British India. Through the Second World War and its aftermath, Jinnah pressed the case for a separate homeland with growing success. When Britain finally resolved to quit India, the Indian Independence Act of July 1947 provided for the partition of the subcontinent and the creation of Pakistan.

Turning points

1. 1849Colonisation

   Britain annexes the Punjab

   After defeating the Sikh kingdom, the British annex Punjab, completing colonial control over the lands that would become Pakistan.

   ↗See the data

   [7]

2. 1906Politics & Power

   Founding of the All-India Muslim League

   The All-India Muslim League is founded to represent the political interests of India's Muslims; it would become the engine of the Pakistan Movement.

   [7] [10]

3. 23 Mar 1940Politics & Power

   The Lahore Resolution

   Meeting in Lahore, the Muslim League under Jinnah adopts the resolution demanding independent states for Muslims, the foundational charter of the Pakistan Movement.

   [10] [7]

4. 18 Jul 1947Independence

   Indian Independence Act passed

   The British Parliament passes the Indian Independence Act, partitioning British India and providing for the creation of the dominions of India and Pakistan.

   ↗See the data

   [11]

Figures of the era

At midnight on 14 August 1947 Pakistan became independent, with Jinnah as Governor-General and Liaquat Ali Khan as prime minister. The new state was a geographic paradox: West Pakistan and East Pakistan (formerly East Bengal) lay on either side of more than 1,600 km of Indian territory. Independence was inseparable from Partition, as a boundary commission under Cyril Radcliffe hastily divided Punjab and Bengal, splitting communities that had lived together for generations.

Partition triggered one of the largest and most violent forced migrations in history. Millions of Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs fled across the new borders in opposite directions; estimates of the dead range widely, commonly cited between several hundred thousand and around two million, amid massacres, mass abductions and sexual violence. The trauma, together with the unresolved status of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, ignited the first of several wars with India and has shadowed relations between the two states ever since.

The young state struggled to find its footing. Jinnah died in September 1948 and Liaquat Ali Khan was assassinated in 1951, leaving a vacuum of leadership. After years of constitutional instability, General Ayub Khan seized power in 1958 in the first of Pakistan's military coups, governing for a decade. Resentment in East Pakistan — more populous yet politically marginalised — deepened until, in 1971, it erupted into a war of secession that would redraw the map once more.

Turning points

1. 14 Aug 1947Independence

   Independence of Pakistan

   Pakistan becomes independent under the Indian Independence Act, with Jinnah as Governor-General and Liaquat Ali Khan as prime minister, comprising West and East Pakistan.

   ↗See the data

   [10] [11]

2. 1947–1948Peoples & Migration

   Partition migration and violence

   The Radcliffe Line divides Punjab and Bengal, and millions are uprooted across the new borders amid massacres and mass migration, with deaths estimated from the hundreds of thousands into the millions.

   ↗See the data

   [12] [11]

3. 16 Oct 1951Politics & Power

   Assassination of Liaquat Ali Khan

   Pakistan's first prime minister is assassinated at a rally in Rawalpindi, deepening the political instability of the new state's early years.

   [13]

4. 1958Politics & Power

   Ayub Khan's military coup

   General Ayub Khan seizes power in Pakistan's first military takeover, beginning a decade of presidential rule and a recurring pattern of army intervention in politics.

   [7] [14]

Figures of the era

In 1971 East Pakistan rose against rule from the west. After the army launched Operation Searchlight in March, atrocities and a refugee exodus into India followed; India intervened militarily in December, and Pakistani forces in the east surrendered at Dhaka on 16 December, giving birth to Bangladesh. The defeat dismembered the country and discredited the military. Power passed to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who as president and then prime minister gave Pakistan a new 1973 constitution, nationalised industry and launched its nuclear programme.

In 1977 General Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq overthrew Bhutto, who was tried and hanged in 1979. Zia imposed martial law and a sweeping programme of Islamisation until his death in a plane crash in 1988. Democracy returned, alternating Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, until General Pervez Musharraf seized power in 1999. In 1998 Pakistan had answered India's tests with nuclear detonations of its own in Balochistan, declaring itself a nuclear-armed state.

Civilian rule resumed after Musharraf, though the assassination of Benazir Bhutto on the eve of the 2008 elections underscored its fragility. In the years since, Pakistan has weathered insurgency and terrorism, devastating floods, and continued tension with India over Kashmir, while completing its first transfers of power between elected governments. Today it is the world's fifth most populous country — a young, populous, nuclear-armed republic still negotiating the balance between civilian authority and a powerful military.

Turning points

1. 16 Dec 1971War & Rupture

   Loss of East Pakistan and birth of Bangladesh

   After a brutal war and Indian intervention, Pakistani forces surrender at Dhaka and East Pakistan becomes the independent state of Bangladesh, dismembering the country.

   ↗See the data

   [15] [16]

2. 4 Apr 1979Politics & Power

   Execution of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto

   Deposed in General Zia-ul-Haq's 1977 coup, former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto is tried and hanged, ushering in a decade of military rule and Islamisation.

   [17] [14]

3. 28 May 1998War & Rupture

   Pakistan conducts nuclear tests

   Following India's tests, Pakistan detonates nuclear devices in Balochistan, openly joining the ranks of nuclear-armed states.

   ↗See the data

   [7]

4. 27 Dec 2007Politics & Power

   Assassination of Benazir Bhutto

   Former prime minister Benazir Bhutto is assassinated at a rally weeks before national elections, after which civilian democratic rule is restored in 2008.

   [17]

Figures of the era