After the Raj, the most powerful weapon in Pakistan's arsenal is a name

At 5:13am on May 10 last year, Pakistan launched the retaliatory ‘Operation Bunyan um Marsoos’ against India. Footage aired by state broadcaster PTV showed fireballs lighting up the sky moments before the sun appeared as the air filled with cries of ‘Allahu Akbar’. The war had begun, and everyone was talking about it—inside Pakistan, on the other side of the border and across the world. But in the Dawn newsroom, and several others as journalists recall, another kind of editorial panic had been unleashed: was it Bunyanum Marsoos? Bunyanun Marsoos? Bunyan-al Marsus? Some news wire services were running Bunyan al-Marsoos. Even transliterations by the government and the military were not always consistent. The confusion was understandable because the name is Arabic—taken from Surah As-Saff, Chapter 61 of the Holy Quran, and translates to “a solid, cemented structure”. Technically, Bunyanun Marsoos is the correct way to spell it in formal Arabic, but the orthographic variation turned the Arabic un into an Urdu um (the latter serves as a filler word in Urdu to fill the silence or signal a pause). Just a few minutes after PTV announced the beginning of Operation Bunyanum Marsoos, Information Minister Ata Tarar took to X to explain where the rationale behind the title: “Indeed, Allah loves those who fight in His cause in a row as though they are a [single] structure joined firmly,” he quoted. “[It] gives us a single command: that when war is imposed, unite as one and charge at the enemy. Allah will be our supporter and helper.” The minister’s explanation did little, however, to clear the confusion. But in a war, there is little time to wrangle the finer points of pronunciation. The next day, someone finally asked the question at a tri-service press conference held immediately upon the declaration of a ceasefire. “We have seen many Islamic terminologies being used in the war…whose idea was it?” one journalist asked the military’s spokesperson. “In the Pakistan Army, Islam is