Islamic republic of Pakistan means the land of the pure in which people elect their representatives to rule on their behalf
An Islamic republic is the name given to several states that are officially ruled by Islamic laws, including the Islamic Republics of Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, and Mauritania. Pakistan first adopted the title under the constitution of 1956. Mauritania adopted it on 28 November 1958. Iran adopted it after the 1979 Iranian Revolution that overthrew the Pahlavi dynasty. Afghanistan adopted it in 2004 after the fall of the Taliban government. Despite having similar names the countries differ greatly in their governments and laws.
The term "Islamic republic" has come to mean several different things, some contradictory to others. To some Muslim religious leaders in the Middle East and Africa who advocate it, an Islamic republic is a state under a particular Islamic form of government. They see it as a compromise between a purely Islamic caliphate and secular nationalism and republicanism. In their conception of the Islamic republic, the penal code of the state is required to be compatible with some or all laws of Sharia, and the state may not be a monarchy, as many Middle Eastern states are presently.[citation needed]
Iran officially uses the name "Islamic Republic" in all governance names referring to the country, e.g. Islamic Republic of Iran Army, Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting etc., as opposed to for example its equivalents in Afghanistan, which are called Afghan National Army and Radio Television Afghanistan. Also, Iran, unlike the others, uses it as part of official acronyms, i.e. 'IRI' for "Islamic Republic of Iran".
Two months after the victory of the Islamic Revolution in 1979, the new government held the Iranian Islamic Republic referendum on 10 and 11 Farvardin (30 and 31 March) to change the Pahlavi dynasty into an Islamic Republic. On 12 Farvardin, it was announced that 98.2 percent of the Iranian voters wanted to establish the "Islamic Republic"
Before the Islamic Republic referendum, some political groups suggested various names for the ideology of the Iranian revolution, such as the Republic (without Islam) or the democratic republic. But Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, asked people to vote for the name "Islamic Republic", not a word more and not a word less.
According to the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Islamic Republic is a system based on beliefs in:
the One God (as stated in the phrase "There is no other god except God"), His exclusive sovereignty and right to legislate, and the necessity of submission to His commands;
divine revelation and its fundamental role in setting forth the laws;
the return to God in the Hereafter, and the constructive role of this belief in the course of man's ascent towards God;
the justice of God in creation and legislation;
continuous leadership and perpetual guidance, and its fundamental role in ensuring the uninterrupted process of the revolution of Islam;
the exalted dignity and value of man, and his freedom coupled with responsibility before God; in which equity, justice, political, economic, social and cultural independence, and national solidarity are secured by recourse to:
continuous leadership of the holy persons, possessing necessary qualifications, exercised on the basis of the Quran and the Sunnah, upon all of whom be peace;
sciences and arts and the most advanced results of human experience, together with the effort to advance them further;
negation of all forms of oppression, both the infliction of and the submission to it, and of dominance, both its imposition and its acceptance.