Pakistan, officially Islamic Republic of Pakistan, republic in southern Asia, at 23.30º to 36.45º north latitude, and 61º to 75.31º east longitude, bounded on the north and north-west by Afghanistan, on the north-east by China, on the east and south-east by India, on the south by the Arabian Sea, and on the west by Iran. The area of Pakistanis 796,095 sq. km (307,374 sq. mi). The time zone of Pakistan is GMT+5. The capital of Pakistan is Islamabad ; the largest city of the country is Karachi .

EARLY CIVILIZATION
The history of the area which is now in Pakistan starts from about 3500 BC. Early settlements in the Balochistan region date from about 3500 BC. Many settlers had migrated eastward from Balochistan to the Indus River valley, where several urban civilisations arose, such as the Harappan. The Indus Valley Civilisation ended abruptly about 1500 BC. During the 2nd millennium BC, Aryan-speaking peoples migrated into the region. Buddhist writings of the 6th and 5th centuries BC mention the state of Gandhara in the Indus River valley. In 327 BC Alexander the Great entered Gandhara seeking to conquer the extremities of the Achaemenian Empire of Persia .

Pakistan was subsequently part of the Mauryan empire during the 3rd century and part of the 2nd century BC and later, in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, part of the Kushan (Kusana) kingdom. The Guptas ruled over northern India , including the Indus River valley, during a period in which Hindu culture crystallised (320-540).

ISLAM IN SUB-CONTINENT
The Umayyad caliph in Damascus sent an expedition to Bloachistan and Sindh in 711 led by Muhammad Bin Qasim. The expedition went as far north as Multan but was not able to retain that region and was not successful in expanding Islamic rule to other part of India . Almost three centuries later, the Turks and Afghans spearheaded the Islamic conquest in India through the traditional invasion routes the northwest. Mahmood Ghazni (979-1030) led a series of raids against Rajput kingdoms and rich Hindu temples and established a base in the Punjab for future incursions.

During the last quarter of the twelfth century, Muhammad of Ghor invaded the Indo-Gangetic Plain, conquering in succession Ghazni, Multan , Sindh, Lahore and Delhi . His successors established the first dynasty of Delhi Sultanate in 1906. The territory under control of the Muslim ruler in Delhi expanded rapidly. By mid-century, Bengal and much of central India were under Delhi Sultanate. Several Turko-Afghan dynasties ruled from Delhi : the Mamluk (1211-90), the Khalji (1290-1320), the Tughlaq (1320-1413), the Sayyid (1415-51) and the Lodhi (1451-1526). As Muslim extended their rule into southern India , only Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagar remained immune, until it too fell in 1565. There were also kingdoms of Delhi in Deccan, Gujrat, Malwa, and Bengal .

The sultan of Delhi enjoyed cordial, if superficial, relations with Muslim rulers in the Near East but owed no allegiance. The sultan based their laws on the Quran and Sunnah and permitted non-Muslim subjects to practice their religion.

THE MUGHAL PERIOD
India in sixteenth century presented a fragmented picture of ruler, both Muslim and Hindu, who lacked concern for their subjects and who fail to create a common body of laws and institution.

Claiming descent from both Chinggis Khan and Timur, Babar combined strength and courage with a love of beauty, and military. Babar concentrated on going control of northwest India . He did so in 1526 by defeating the last Lodhi sultan on the field of Panipat, a town just northwest of Delhi . Babar then turned to the tasks of persuading his Central Asian followers to stay on in India and of overcoming other contenders for power, mainly the Rajputs and Afghans. He succeeded in both tasks but died shortly thereafter in 1530. The Mughal Empire was one of the largest centralized states in pre-modern history and was the precursor to the British Indian Empire.

Mughal officials permitted the new carriers of India 's considerable export trade to establish trading posts (factories) in India . The Dutch East India Company concentrated mainly on the spice trade from present-day Indonesia . Britain 's East India Company also set up factories.

During the wars of the eighteenth century, the factories served not only as collection and transshipment points for trade but also increasingly as fortified centers of refuge for both foreigners and Indians. British factories gradually began to apply British law to disputes arising within jurisdiction. The posts also began to grow in area and population. Armed company servants were effective protectors of trade. As rival contenders for power called for armed assistance and as individual European adventurers found permanent homes in India , British and French companies found themselves more and more involved in local politics in the south and in Bengal . Plots and counterplots climaxed when British East India Company forces, led by Robert Clive, decisively defeated the largest but divided forces of Nawab Siraj-ud-Dawlah at Plassey in Bengal in 1757.

COMPANY RULE
It was not until middle of the nineteenth century that almost all of the territory that constituted Pakistan and India came under the rule of British East India Company. The patterns of territorial acquisition and rule as applied by company in Sindh and Punjab and manner of governance became the basis for direct British rule in the British Indian Empire and indirect rule in the princely states under paramountcy of the crown.

Although the British had earlier ruled in the factory areas, the beginning of British rule is often dated from the Battle of Plassey. Clive's victory was consolidated in 1764 at the Battle of Buxar (in Bihar ), where the emperor, Shah Alam II, was defeated. As a result, Shah Alam was coerced to appoint the company to diwan (collector of revenue) for the area of Bengal, Bihar , and Qrisaa (this pretense of Mughal control was abandoned in 1827). The company thus became he supreme, but not the titular, power in much of Ganges Valley , and company agents continued to trade highly favorable to them.

The area controlled by company expanded during first three decades of nineteenth century by two methods. The first was the use of subsidiary agreements between the British and the local rulers, under which control of foreign affairs, defense and communication was transferred from the ruler to the company and the ruler were allowed to rule as they wished (up to a limit) on other matters. This development created what came to be called Native State , or Princely India, that is, the world of the Mahahraja and his Muslim counterpart, the nawab. The second method was outright military conquest or direct annexation of territories; it was these area that were properly called British India . Most of northern India was annexed by British.

At the start of nineteenth century, most of present-day Pakistan was under independent rulers. Sindh was ruled by Muslim Talpur mirs (chiefs) in three small states that were annexed by the British in 1843. In the Punjab, the decline of the Mughal Empire allowed the rise of the Sikhs, first as a military force and later as a political administration in Lahore . The kingdom of Lahore was at its most powerful expansive during rule of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, when Sikh control was extended beyond Peshawar , and Kashmir was added to his domains in 1819. After the death of Ranjit Singh, the company fought two wars against Sikh. (in 1839 and in 1849) and succeeded to occupy the Punjab and present-day North West Frontier Province . Kashmir was transferred by sale in the Treaty of Amritsar in 1850 to the Dogrra Dynasty, which ruled the area under British paramountcy until 1947.

The company also fought war to conquer Afghanistan in 1838, which was assisted by Sikh allies. Although they partially succeeded but they left Afghanistan in January, 1842 with one of the worst disasters in British military history, as a column of more than 16,000 (about one-third soldiers, the rest camp followers) was annihilated by Afghan tribesmen as they struggled through the snowbound passes on their way back to India . They made no attempt to reoccupy Afghanistan .

THE BRITISH EMPIRES
He uprising of 1875-58 became the great divide in nineteenth-century South Asian history. Understated by British historians as the Indian Mutiny or Sepoy Rebellion and referred to with some exaggeration by later Indian nationalists as the First War of Independence, the uprising nevertheless heralded the formal end of the Mughal Empire and marked the end of company rule in India as well. In general, the uprising was a reaction to British expansionism and the outcome to the policies of modernisation and annexation of Governor General Lord Dalhousie (1848-56), especially in Oudh (Avadh, now part of the Indian state of Uter Praesh) in 1956. The immediate spark for mutiny by the sepoys (Indian soldiers employed by East India Company) was the introduction of the new Enfield rifle, which had cartridge allegedly greased with cow or pig fat, the tips of which had to be bitten off before loading their weapons. Both Muslim and Hindu soldiers were outraged at this offence to their religious scruples and refused to comply. British officers responded by dismissing regiment after regiment from the Bengal Army for refusing to load their weapons.

The uprising of 1857-58 heralded the formal end of the Mughal Empire and marked as well as the end of company rule in India . The British Parliament passed the Government of India Act of 1858, which transferred authority to the British Crow, represented in India by governor general, who thereafter also had the title of viceroy. Queen Victoria was proclaimed empress of India in 1877.

He Victorian model of administration in British India became the standard reference point for law, order, and probity in Pakistan . At the apex of the administration stood the governor general held supreme legislative and executive powers and was responsible directly to the secretary of state for India , a member of the British cabinet.

The British Rule was socially and politically conservative, but it brought profound economic change to the sub-continent.

THE FORWARD POLICY
British policy toward the tribal people on the Northwest frontier vacillated between caution and adventuresome during the latter half of the nineteenth century. Some viceroys opposed extending direct administration or defence beyond the Indus River . Other favoured a more assertive posture, or "forward policy". The latter's view prevailed, partly because Russian advance in Central Asia gave their arguments credence. In 1874 Sir Robert Sandeman was sent to improve British relations with the Baloch tribes and the Khan of Kalat. In 1876 Sandeman concluded a treaty with Khan of Kalat that brought his territories - including Kharan, Makran, and Las Bela - under British suzerainty. The second Anglo-Afghan war was fought in 878-80, sparked by the Afghan amir's refusal to accept a British diplomatic mission to Kabal. In May 1879, a treaty was signed by Afghans and Britain which forced Afghanistan to accept Britain's control of its foreign affairs and to cede the British various frontier areas, including the district Pishin, Sibi, Harnai, and Thal Chotiali.>

THE SEEDS OF MUSLIM NATIONALISM
Although the Seed of Muslim Nationalism was sowed in the land of Sub-continent since 711 AD when first Indian had become a Muslim. But, one response to British rule came to be known as Deoband Movement, which was led by the ulama, who were expanding Islamic education. The ulama also sought to reform the teaching of Islamic law and to promote its application in a Muslim society. They promoted publications in Urdu, establish fund raising drives, and undertook modern organisational work on an all-India basis. While most Deobandis eventually were to support the Indian National Congress and a united India , a group that favoured the creation of Pakistan later emerged as the core of the Jamiat-ul-Ulama-I-Islam party.

Another response was led by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan (1817-98) and was called Aligarh Movement after the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College (now Aligarh University ), which was founded in 1875 at Aligarh in north-central India . Sir Syed considered access to British education as the best means of social mobility for the sons of the Muslim gentry under colonial rule.

Meanwhile, the beginnings of the Indian nationalist movement were to be discerned in the increasing tendency to form all-India associations representing various interests. English-speaking Indians, predominantly middle-class but from different parts of the country, were discovering the efficacy of associations and public meetings in propagating their views to a winder audience and in winning the attention of the British government. In 1885 the Indian National Congress was founded to formulate proposals and demands to present to the British.

Congress worked and helped the Indian-British Rule, but it refused to do so after World War I, The idea of the territorial integrity of India and opposition to any sectarian division of India , however, always remained sacrosanct to Congress.

Sir Syed remained aloof when Congress was founded and he advised his followers not to join it, because he thought the organisation would be dominated by Hindus and would inevitably become antigovernment. It has been argued that Sir Syed's fear of Hindu domination sowed the seeds for the "Two Nations Theory" later espoused by the All-India Muslim League, founded in 1906 and led to its demand for a separate state for the Muslims of India - reinforcing his view that the British were only guarantors of the rights of the Muslims. Sir Syed argued that education and non-politics was the key to Muslim advancement. Graduates of Aligarh generally made their careers initially in administration, non-politics, and thus were greatly affected by introduction of representative institutions at the provincial level by the India Council Act 1892.

All India Muslim League had been founded in Dhaka to promote loyalty to the British and to protect and advance the political rights of the Muslims of India and respectfully represents their needs and aspirations to the Government. It was also stated that there was no intention to affect the rights to affect the rights of other religious groups. Earlier that same year, a group of Muslims - the Simla Delegation - led by Aga Khan III, met viceroy and put forward the concept of "separate electorates."

BEGINNING OF SELF GOVERNMENT
The Government of India Act of 1909 - also know as the Morley-Minto Reforms - gave Indians limited role in the central and provincial legislatures, known as legislative councils.