Nawaz Sharif

After the creation of Pakistan in 1947, Nawaz's parents migrated from Amritsar to Lahore.

His father followed the teachings of the Ahl-i Hadith.

His family owns Ittefaq Group, a multimillion-dollar steel conglomerate, and Sharif Group, a conglomerate with holdings in agriculture, transport and sugar mills.

He has two younger brothers: Shehbaz Sharif and the late Abbas Sharif, both politicians by profession.

Nawaz went to Saint Anthony High School.

He graduated from the Government College University (GCU) with an art and business degree and then received a law degree from the Law College of Punjab University in Lahore.

Nawaz was a cricketer in his early years, playing as an opening batsman.

Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif (Urdu, Punjabi: ; born 25 December 1949) is a Pakistani businessman and politician who served as the Prime Minister of Pakistan for three non-consecutive terms.

He is the longest-serving prime minister of Pakistan, having served a total of more than 9 years across three tenures.

Each term has ended in his ousting.

Born into the upper-middle-class Sharif family in Lahore, Nawaz is the son of Muhammad Sharif, the founder of Ittefaq and Sharif groups.

He is the elder brother of Shehbaz Sharif, who also served as prime minister of Pakistan from 2022 to 2023 and from 2024 to present.

According to the Election Commission of Pakistan, Nawaz is one of the wealthiest men in Pakistan, with an estimated net worth of at least.

Most of his wealth originates from his businesses in steel construction.

Nawaz was born in Lahore, Punjab, on 25 December 1949.

The Sharif family are Punjabi-speaking Kashmiris.

His father, Muhammad Sharif, was an upper-middle-class businessman and industrialist whose family had emigrated from Anantnag in Kashmir for business.

They settled in the village of Jati Umra in Amritsar district, Punjab, at the beginning of the twentieth century.

His mother's family came from Pulwama.

She married Nawaz Sharif in April 1970.

The couple have four children: Maryam, Asma, Hassan and Hussain.

Peter Oborne noted that he had success at club level and that "he was proud of his first-class record", having been part of the highly rated Pakistan Railways team in 1973–1974.

Before entering politics in the mid-1980s, Nawaz studied business at Government College and law at the University of Punjab.

In 1981, Nawaz was appointed by President Zia as the minister of finance for the province of Punjab.

Backed by a loose coalition of conservatives, Nawaz was elected as the Chief Minister of Punjab in 1985 and re-elected after the end of martial law in 1988.

Years later, when he was a well-known politician, he'd play in warm-up matches, for Lahore Gymkhana against England and as temporary captain of the national team against the West Indies, both just before the 1987 World Cup.

Due to the West Indies match he'd surprise Imran Khan, then the regular captain, because Nawaz opened the innings with minimal protection against one of the most feared fast bowling attack.

Nawaz Sharif's wife Kulsoom had two sisters and a brother.

From her maternal side, she was the maternal granddaughter of the wrestler The Great Gama (Ghulam Mohammad Baksh Butt).

In 1990, Nawaz led the conservative Islamic Democratic Alliance and became the 12th prime minister of Pakistan.

After being ousted in 1993, when President Ghulam Ishaq Khan dissolved the National Assembly, Nawaz served as the leader of the opposition to the government of Benazir Bhutto from 1993 to 1996.

He returned to the premiership after the Pakistan Muslim League (N) (PML-N) was elected in 1997, and served until his removal in 1999 by military takeover and was tried in a plane hijacking case which was argued by Barrister Ijaz Husain Batalvi, assisted by Khawaja Sultan senior Advocate, Sher Afghan Asdi and Akhtar Aly Kureshy Advocate.

After being imprisoned and later exiled for more than a decade, he returned to politics in 2011 and led his party to victory for the third time in 2013.

In 2017, Nawaz was removed from office by the Supreme Court of Pakistan regarding revelations from the Panama Papers case.

In 2018, the Pakistani Supreme Court disqualified Nawaz from holding public office, and he was also sentenced to ten years in prison by an accountability court.

Since 2019, Nawaz was in London for medical treatment on bail.

He was also declared an absconder by a Pakistani court, however, the Islamabad High Court (IHC) granted him protective bail till October 24 in the Avenfield and Al-Aziza cases.

In 2023, after four years of exile, he returned to Pakistan.

In a legal proceeding, a division bench, consisting of Islamabad High Court (IHC) Chief Justice Aamir Farooq and Justice Miangul Hasan Aurangzeb, adjudicated Nawaz Sharif's appeals challenging his sentences in the Avenfield and Al-Azizia Steel Mills cases.

The outcome of these proceedings resulted in the acquittal of PML-N leader Nawaz Sharif on 29 November 2023 from charges related to the Avenfield Apartments references by the IHC.