The Sindh government announced on Wednesday that all public and private schools across the province would remain closed on Nov 9 (Monday) to mark the birth anniversary of Dr Allama Muhammad Iqbal, the national poet of Pakistan.

The Sindh Information Department posted a notification by the School Education and Literacy Department on the social media platform X.

“In pursuance of the decision taken in the meeting of Steering Committee on Education held on Feb 12, all public and private educational institutions under the administrative control of the School Education and Literacy Department, government of Sindh, shall remain closed on Nov 9 (Monday) on account of Allama Iqbal Day,” it said.

The notification was sent to the principal secretaries of the Sindh governor and chief minister, as well as other senior officials.

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.