HIS weak eyesight prevented him from achieving his childhood dream of becoming a fighter pilot and instead he graduated as an engineer. Due to his excellent sense and skills of music he became lead vocalist of Vital Signs in the early ’80s.

Pakistan’s rock music industry’s fast development was mainly due to the commercial success of Vital Signs’ first album with Junaid Jamshed as main singer of the most popular patriotic song ‘Dil Dil Pakistan’.

After having gone through many ups and downs, from the most popular pop singer to bankruptcy, to a revival of fortunes, he quit music and devoted his life to Islam and became an Islamic preacher and charity worker. He also kept his singing skills alive and joined the ranks of Pakistan’s highly respected Qur’an reciters and nasheed (vocal Islamic songs) singers.

The Jordan-based annual publication The Muslim 500 listed Junaid Jamshed in the 2014 issue as one of the world’s most influential Muslims for his achievements and active involvement in charity work, especially with the UK registered NGO ‘Muslim Charity’.

The Muslim Charity, under his enthusiastic leadership has achieved a great deal and expanded its operations to many countries. Muslim Charity has provided assistance in many natural disasters such as the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami in 2004 and the Pakistan earthquake of 2005.

The young handsome man with a guitar of 1983 who turned into a religious preacher and charity worker met his Creator on Dec 7 May Allah rest his sou in peace.

M. Khalid Kamal

Doha, Qatar

Published in Dawn December 15th, 2016