Arif Alvi

He also served as Chairman of the 28th Asia Pacific Dental Congress.

He served as Dean of the Faculty of Orthodontics of the College of Physicians and Surgeons Pakistan.

Arif-ur-Rehman Alvi (born 29 July 1949) is a Pakistani politician who served as the 13th President of Pakistan, in office from 9 September 2018 to 10 March 2024.

Alvi was born on 29 July 1949 in Karachi, Pakistan.

His father, Habib-ur-Rehman Elahi Alvi, was a dentist in British India who migrated to Karachi after the establishment of Pakistan, and opened a dental clinic in Saddar Town.

His father became politically affiliated with Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan.

According to the website of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, Alvi's father was a dentist of Jawaharlal Nehru.

After his father started a campaign against compulsory Bible classes, he was expelled from Karachi Grammar School.

He completed his early education in Karachi, and moved to Lahore in 1967 for education in dentistry.

Alvi received a Bachelor of Dental Surgery degree from De'Montmorency College of Dentistry.

During his early days, he was a critic of the Ayub Khan regime and was shot twice while participating in a protest in 1969 at The Mall, Lahore; a bullet still remains lodged in his body.

He completed his master's degree in prosthodontics from the University of Michigan in 1975.

He became politically active after Zulfikar Ali Bhutto announced the 1977 Pakistani general election.

Alvi was a dentist before entering politics in 1979, when he joined Jamaat-e-Islami (Pakistan), but resigned later on from the party and then joined former cricketer Imran Khan's party in 1996 and is amongst the founding members of PTI.

He ran for a seat on the Provincial Assembly of Sindh as a candidate of the JI from a constituency in Karachi in 1979 but was unsuccessful.

In 1981, Alvi was Chairman of the first Pakistan International Dental Conference.

Alvi received a master's degree in orthodontics in 1984 from the University of the Pacific in San Francisco, California.

After returning to Pakistan, he started practicing dentistry and set up Alvi Dental Hospital.

Alvi is married to Samina Alvi.

The couple has four married children.

In March 2021, he tested positive for COVID-19 shortly after having received the first dose of a vaccine, which was later confirmed to have been a vaccine from Sinopharm.

In January 2022, he contracted Covid-19 again amidst the Omicron wave.

In 1987, he became Chairman of the Third Pakistan International Dental Conference.

He became Patron of the Fifth Pakistan International Dental Conference.

In 1988, he quit JI and left politics.

According to Alvi, he left the party because he had become disillusioned with their narrow focus on politics and had "always felt honest leadership is the real solution to Pakistan’s problems".

After getting inspired by Imran Khan, he joined Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf in 1996 and became one of the founding members of the party.

He participated in preparing the party constitution of PTI.

In 1997, Alvi became a Diplomate of the American Board of Orthodontics.

He prepared the constitution of the Pakistan Dental Association and went on to become its president.

He remained a member of the PTI central executive council for a year before becoming president of PTI's Sindh chapter in 1997.

In 2006, he was elected as the President of Asia Pacific Dental Federation.

The next year, he was elected as a Councillor of the FDI World Dental Federation.

Alvi began his political career as a polling agent and joined a religious party.

While studying at De'Montmorency College of Dentistry, he became an active member of the student unions.

He became politically affiliated with Islami Jamiat Talaba, a student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami Pakistan (JI) and went on to become president of the student union.

He was a member of the National Assembly of Pakistan from June 2013 to May 2018 and again from August to September 2018.

Alvi was elected to the National Assembly, from NA-250 Karachi-XII in 2013 and was re-elected in 2018 from NA-247 Karachi South-II.

He was later nominated as the PTI's candidate for the presidential election.

He was elected as the 13th President of Pakistan after defeating Fazal-ur-Rehman and Aitzaz Ahsan, after which he resigned from the National Assembly and was sworn into office on 9 September 2018, succeeding Mamnoon Hussain.