Pakistan Government Declares Nationwide Public Holiday for Iqbal Day

The federal government of Pakistan declared November 9 a public holiday across the country to mark the birth anniversary of poet-philosopher Allama Muhammad Iqbal.

The Cabinet Division confirmed the holiday in a press release, citing the annual public and optional holidays schedule for 2026. Born in Sialkot in 1877, Iqbal earned recognition as Pakistan's ideological founder and the first politician to articulate the two-nation theory at the 1930 Allahabad session of the Muslim League. The provincial government of Punjab issued a notification confirming that November 9 will be observed as a public holiday in the province.

The Sindh government announced that all public and private schools across Sindh will remain closed on November 9 to mark the 149th birth anniversary of the national poet. Additionally, the State Bank of Pakistan declared a closure on Monday in observance of the holiday. The day was previously part of the national public holiday calendar for decades before the interior ministry cancelled it as an annual holiday through a circular issued on November 4, 2015. The government under Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif restored the holiday in 2022.