Senator Mushahid Hussain Sayed has a multifaceted background, having served as Cabinet Minister, Newspaper Editor, University Professor, and Senator. He is a journalist, geostrategist, politician, and an avid writer and reader. Born in Sialkot, Pakistan, Mushahid was raised in a family of five siblings. His parents, father, Colonel Amjad Hussain Sayed, and mother, Mrs. Samin Sayed, were prominent veterans and activists of the Pakistan freedom struggle. His father is a recipient of the Gold Medal from the Prime Minister in 1997 for his outstanding contributions to the Movement for Pakistan’s Freedom, and his mother received the Madar-e-Millat Fatimah Jinnah Gold Medal for being a prominent woman activist in the freedom struggle for Pakistan. Hailing from a middle-class family background, Mushahid was raised in a progressive and forward-looking atmosphere where quality education, merit, honesty, and hard work were the core values.

He studied at the Forman Christian College in Lahore, run by an American Presbyterian Church, from where he received a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science. He holds a Master of Science in Foreign Service (MSFS) from the prestigious School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. While studying in the United States, he was President of the Pakistan Students Association of America. He represented Georgetown University at the Student Conference on United States Affairs (SCUSA) at the United States Military Academy at West Point, the Naval Academy Foreign Affairs Conference (NAFAC) at Annapolis, and the US State Department’s ‘Crossroads’ program for foreign students. He was also part of the international student group received by President Gerald Ford at the White House. He was awarded a Congressional Internship, rare then for a foreign student, to work in the United States Congress in the summer of 1974.

After completion of studies in the United States, he returned to Pakistan and became the youngest member of the faculty at the country’s premier training institution for civil servants, the Pakistan Administrative Staff College, training fresh programmers. He then joined Pakistan’s oldest seat of learning, the Punjab University, as Lecturer on International Relations in the Political Science Department. He was among the four dissident teachers removed from the university in October 1979 on political grounds for their campus activism during the military regime. Mushahid Hussain has served in the Federal Cabinet as Minister of Information, Tourism, Youth, Sports, and Culture from 1997 to 1999. He has been elected to the Senate of Pakistan four times.

He was also elected the Secretary General of the Pakistan Muslim League, one of Pakistan’s major political parties. As Information Minister from 1997 to 1999, he was the country’s principal spokesman and appeared frequently on international television and radio channels to present Pakistan’s position on issues ranging from nuclear weapons to Islam and foreign policy. He was a member of Pakistan’s five-member delegation led by the Prime Minister, which was received by President Bill Clinton for parleys at the White House in December 1998. He was also chairman of the Prime Minister’s Task Force on Central Asia in 1992–93, which planned policy initiatives towards that region after the breakup of the Soviet Union. During the state visits of South African President Nelson Mandela, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, and Palestinian President Yasser Arafat to Pakistan, he was attached to them as Minister-in-Waiting. He was also leader of Pakistan’s delegation to the UN Human Rights Commission at Geneva in 1993.

After the October 12, 1999, military coup, he was held without any charges as a political prisoner for 440 days, including a period in solitary imprisonment. The world’s leading human rights organization, Amnesty International, declared him a ‘Prisoner of Conscience,’ making him the first Pakistani to be so honored for the year 2000. Pursuant to an invitation, he wrote about his unique experiences in a special op-ed piece in ‘The New York Times’ titled In the Cage, in Search of Grace on February 12, 2001. The Washington Post profiled him in detention on September 15, 2000, Pakistan Keeps Gag on Former Spokesman.

At age 29, he became the youngest editor of a major national English daily The Muslim published from Islamabad, which was respected for its bold and independent positions. As a journalist, he has a broad range of professional experience, including covering summits, interviewing leaders, and reporting on conflicts like Palestine, the guerrilla war in Western Sahara, and the Iran-Iraq war. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, he was the first Pakistani journalist to personally visit Kabul, then under Soviet military control, and interview leaders there. As a specialist on international political and strategic issues, he has lectured widely, and his articles have been published in various national and international publications, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, International Herald Tribune, Jane’s Defense Weekly, and Middle East International.

He was elected co-chairman of the NAM (Non-Aligned Movement) Media Conference of 100 countries, held in New Delhi in December 1983, and he is the first Pakistani journalist to have started a syndicated column in the Indian media, writing regularly in The Times of India and The Hindustan Times. Mushahid Hussain is the author of three books. He also founded in 1999 the Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI), a leading think tank, which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. He was Pakistan’s representative to the 15-member Commission of Eminent Persons formed to reform and restructure the Organization of Islamic Countries (OIC). He is also the elected Co-Chairman and Special Representative of the International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP), the largest organization of political parties in Asia.

He is also Vice-Chairman of Nazriya Pakistan Trust (Ideology of Pakistan), based in Lahore. He served as Senator and Chairman of the Foreign Relations, Kashmir Affairs, and Northern Areas Committee of the Senate. He has also been a member of the Parliamentary Committee on Kashmir, Joint Parliamentary Committee on Balochistan, Functional Committee on Government Assurances, Functional Committee on Human Rights, and Parliamentary Committee on Electoral Reforms. He has been a guest lecturer at the State Department’s Foreign Service Institute, Harvard University, MIT, the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC, the Stimson Centre, Oxford University, Tsinghua University in Beijing, and Georgetown University’s Centre for Christian-Muslim Understanding.

Awards and Honors

• Awarded the Congressional Medal of Achievement by the House of Representatives of the Republic of the Philippines, January 2006.

• Awarded Honorary Doctorate by the Royal Academy of Cambodia in Political Science, November 2010.

• Awarded the Star of Achievement for Service to Humanity by the International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP), December 2010.

• Received the highest Cambodian award, Grand Order of the Kingdom of Cambodia, for contribution to Asian causes, May 2011.

• Received the 2013 Tsinghua University Award for ‘Outstanding Contribution to Public Diplomacy’ for his role in promoting Pakistan-China people-to-people relations, August 31, 2013.

• President Xi Jinping personally conferred the prestigious ‘Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence Friendship Award’ at Islamabad on April 20, 2015.

• Awarded the prestigious Practitioner-in-Residence at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Washington, DC, USA, for the academic year 2022-24, where he lectures/mentors senior students on International Relations.

• He was one of five people who received the first Belt & Road Silk Road News Award in 2023 from China’s People’s Daily.

Mushahid Hussain contested elections for President of Pakistan in 2008, and although he lost the presidential elections, he led in public opinion polls. He is the founder and chairman of the Pakistan-China Institute, a think tank and non-governmental platform devoted to strengthening relations with China and the region. He has also served as Chairman of the All-Party Parliamentary Committee on China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) from September 2015 to February 2018, which played a pivotal role in promoting consensus on CPEC amongst provinces and political parties. In 2024, Mushahid Hussain launched Pakistan’s first think tank on Africa, the Pakistan-Africa Institute for Development & Research (PAIDAR).