Four Pakistani Celebrities who became clergymen

There is no doubt that Pakistan came into being in the name of religion and religion for more than 70 years has remain an important aspect of lives of Pakistanis. Religion dominates every walk of life in Pakistan and most of the time it is seen that People come out in the mobs for seek of their religion. In this blog I would share with my readers about four celebrities, who were at top of their profession but suddenly left it and became clergymen.

(1) Junaid Jamshed:

Junaid Jamshed is remembered as one the greatest Pakistani Pop singers who gave number of hit songs including "Dil Dil Pakistan", "Sawani Saloni Se" and others. He was the main vocalist of a band called Vital Signs.

 He was born in Karachi in 1964, he got an engineering degree from a university based in Lahore and for some time he worked in Pakistan Air-force. In 1987, he started his singing career and was leading vocalist of his band.

But in 2004, he left his singing career and became an Islamic evangelist and started preaching Islam, however, one of his speeches became controversial in 2014 and was accused of blasphemy. In 2016, a plane crash took place at Havelian in which Junaid Jamshed along with many other passengers died.

(2) Saeed Anwar: 

Saeed Anwar was a former Pakistani opening batsman and captain, he was a left-handed batsman and is regarded as one of the best batsmen Pakistan has ever produced.

In a match of Asia Cup against India Anwar went on to score 194 run before he got out, which happened to be a world record of highest individual score in ODIs for a long time. Saeed Anwar was born in 1968 at Karachi and made his test debut in 1990 against West Indies.

He played 55 test matches and scored more than four thousand run, while he scored more than eight thousand runs in 247 ODIS. He also became the captain of Pakistan Team, his cricketing career  came to an end in 2003, and during his career he was accused of match-fixing.

 In 2001, when his daughter died after long ailment he went into inner turmoil and found peace in religion. From then on he became a Muslim evangelist.

(3) Mohammad Yousuf: 

Mohammad Yousuf (formerly known as Yousuf Youhana) is a Pakistani cricketer, he was a right-handed middle order batsman and was considered as backbone of Pakistani batting line up. He was born in 1974 at Lahore in a Christian family, he made his test debut in 1998 against South Africa.

He represented Pakistan in 90 test matches and scored more than seven thousand runs, while year 2006 is considered the golden year of his career in which he went on to score more than seventeen hundred runs in just one year, he played 288 ODIs and scored more than nine thousand runs.

 In 2005, he was converted to Islam, in 2010, his career came to an end when Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) banned him on disciplinary issues, PCB in an inquiry found that one of the causes of Pakistan's defeat on Australian tour was Mohammad Yousuf's indiscipline. After his cricketing career ended Yousuf started preaching religion.

(4) Veena Malik:

 Veena Malik is Pakistani TV celebrity, she started her acting, hosting and modeling career in 2000, and is better known for her boldness. She was the host of famous comedy programme "Hum Sub Umeed Say Hain" and went on to work in dramas, movies and commercials. She was also contestant of Indian Reality TV Show Big Boss in 2010.

 There are rumours that she had an affair with Pakistani cricketer Mohammad Asif, in 2013, she got married with a business man Asad Bashir but has recently got divorced from him, Veena remained a controversial celebrity in Pakistan. In 2014, she came under the charge of blasphemy and was sentenced by Gilgit Court 26 years imprisonment, after which she announced to leave showbiz and claimed to start preaching religion to girls.