The federal government has announced a nationwide public holiday on November 9 to mark the birth anniversary of Dr Allama Muhammad Iqbal, the national poet of Pakistan, a notification issued by the Cabinet Division said on Thursday.

Born on November 9, 1877, in Sialkot, Iqbal was a distinguished poet, a scholar, a gifted philosopher, and Pakistan’s ideological founder. It was at the Allahabad session of the Muslim League in 1930 that Iqbal became the first politician to articulate the two-nation theory that ultimately led to the creation of Pakistan on August 14, 1947.

Iqbal Day was on the calendar of national public holidays for decades, but the interior ministry, through a circular issued on November 4, 2015, announced the cancellation of the day as an annual holiday without specifying a reason. However, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government restored the holiday in 2022.

“As notified vide Cabinet Division’s circular No. 10-02/2023-MM-II dated 20th December 2023, listing Public and Optional Holidays for the year 2024, Saturday, November 9, 2024, shall be a public holiday throughout the country on the occasion of Allama Iqbal Day,” the notification, a copy of which is available with Dawn.com read.

On the occasion of restoring the public holiday, PM Shehbaz had also constituted a committee to highlight the work of the national poet — desiring that a programme be arra­n­ged to highlight the life, work, and philosophy of Dr Iqbal through the month of November.

A changing of the guard ceremony at the mausoleum of Dr Iqbal outside Lahore’s Badshahi Masjid traditionally kicks off the events scheduled for the day.