Asim Munir

Asim Munir (born 1968) is a Pakistani field marshal who has been Chief of the Army Staff since November 2022 and Pakistan's first Chief of Defence Forces since December 2025 ^{1 2}.

Syed Asim Munir Ahmed Shah was born in Rawalpindi in 1968 into a Punjabi Syed family whose parents had migrated from Jalandhar at Partition; his father Syed Sarwar Munir was a school principal and the imam of Masjid Quresh in Dheri Hassan Abad ^{1 3}. He received his early religious education at the Markazi Madrasah Dar-ul-Tajweed, and studied at the Command and Staff College Quetta, the Malaysian Armed Forces College and the National Defence University, Islamabad ^{1 2}.

Commissioned into the Frontier Force Regiment from the Officers Training School, Mangla - where he won the Sword of Honour - Munir served in Saudi Arabia as a lieutenant-colonel, and it was during that posting that he memorised the Quran, the first Pakistani army chief to have done so ¹. He directed Military Intelligence from 2016 and the Inter-Services Intelligence from October 2018 to June 2019 - the shortest ISI tenure on record - then commanded XXX Corps at Gujranwala and served as quartermaster general ^{1 2}. Appointed army chief on 24 November 2022, days before his scheduled retirement, he led the army through the May 2025 conflict with India and was promoted field marshal on 20 May 2025 ¹. On 4 December 2025 he was appointed the first Chief of Defence Forces, holding the post concurrently with the army chiefship ^{1 2}. Munir's memorisation of the Quran and his madrasa schooling are documented practice attested for the man himself, but no text read names a school or order for him, so his faith is recorded as unknown with the practice stated ^{1 2 4}.

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