Qaumi Tarana
Overview
National anthem
A national anthem is a generally patriotic musical composition that evokes and eulogizes the history, traditions and struggles of its people, recognized either by a nation's government as the official national song, or by convention through use by the people.- History :Anthems rose to prominence...
of Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
. The words "Qaumi Tarana" in Urdu literally translate to "National Anthem". The Pakistani national anthem is unique in that its music, composed by Ahmad G. Chagla
Ahmed Ghulamali Chagla
Ahmed Ghulamali Chagla Urdu: احمد غلام علی چھاگلہ wrote the score for the national anthem of Pakistan, in 1950. He was born in May 1902 into a prominent Karachi family. His father, Ghulamali Chagla was the third elected president of the municipality of Karachi, serving from 1921 to 1922...
, preceded its lyrics, which are in Persianized
Persian language
Persian is an Iranian language within the Indo-Iranian branch of the Indo-European languages. It is primarily spoken in Iran, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and countries which historically came under Persian influence...
Urdu
Urdu
Urdu is a register of the Hindustani language that is identified with Muslims in South Asia. It belongs to the Indo-European family. Urdu is the national language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also widely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one of the 22 scheduled languages and an...
and were written by Hafeez Jullundhri. Another feature of the anthem is that no verse in the three stanza
Stanza
In poetry, a stanza is a unit within a larger poem. In modern poetry, the term is often equivalent with strophe; in popular vocal music, a stanza is typically referred to as a "verse"...
lyrics is repeated.
In early 1948, A. R. Ghani from Transvaal
Transvaal Province
Transvaal Province was a province of the Union of South Africa from 1910 to 1961, and of its successor, the Republic of South Africa, from 1961 until the end of apartheid in 1994 when a new constitution subdivided it.-History:...
, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, offered two prizes of five thousand rupees
Pakistani rupee
The rupee is the currency of Pakistan. The issuance of the currency is controlled by the State Bank of Pakistan, the central bank of the country. The most commonly used symbol for the rupee is Rs, used on receipts when purchasing goods and services. In Pakistan, the rupee is referred to as the...
each for the poet and composer of a new national anthem for the newly independent state of Pakistan.
