Draft:Acronym of Pakistan

• Comment: There is no information here that is not already in Pakistan#Etymology, where it is sourced and presented in a neutral tone. bonadea contributions talk 18:19, 25 July 2024 (UTC)

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Main article: Etymology of Pakistan

See also: Etymology of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

PAKISTAN Map.

The Sovereign Nation of Pakistan was created in 1947 as a Muslim nation carved out of former British India (Dissolution). But where did the name come from? It was coined by a Muslim Indian nationalist named Choudhary Rehmat Ali Khan, in a 1933 pamphlet entitled “Now or Never”.

The Nomenclator of PAKISTAN.

Rehmat Ali, who was based in the UK as an academic working at Cambridge University (He himself is buried at the campus), simply took the names of the Five Major-provinces of India that were to be incorporated as the new country. The initial letters of four of them, plus the end of the Fifth, could be read as the new name. These were:

The

• P

• A (Afghan province)

• K

• S

• BaluchesTAN

Put together, this made Pakstan, so adding a “ī” made sense in terms of producing something more pronounceable. The idea caught on and before long everyone was referring to the putative new country as Pakistan, although its creation was still 15 years into the future.

Rehmat Ali later claimed that a slightly different amended derivation was what he had in mind, namely:

• P/PUNJAB - The Cultural Heart of the Country

• A/Afghania (North-West Frontier Province) - Frontier Region

• K/KASHMIR - The Jugular Vein of the Country (Muslim-Majority)

• I/IRAN - Persianate heritage

• S/SINDHU - Civilisational heritage

• T/TURKESTAN - Central Turkic States

• A/AFGHANISTAN - Muslim Brethren

• N/BalochisTAN - Gateway to South Asia

Thus the Very Word Pakistan means “A Land Bounding in the Pure” or “A Land in which the Pure Abound,” in Urdu and Persian.