Noor Jehan (21 September 1926 – 23 December 2000)[a] was a Pakistani playback singer and actress who worked in both British India and later in Pakistan's cinema.

[8] Along with Ahmed Rushdi, she holds the record for having given voice to the largest number of film songs in the history of Pakistani cinema.

[11] Noor Jehan was born Allah Rakhi Wasai into a Punjabi Muslim family in Kot Murad Khan, Kasur, Punjab, British India[12] and was one of the eight children of Imdad Ali and Fateh Bibi.

[13][14] Noor Jehan began to sing at the age of six and showed a keen interest in a range of styles, including traditional folk and popular theatre.

[16][17] At the age of nine, Noor Jehan drew the attention of Punjabi musician Ghulam Ahmed Chishti, who would later introduce her to the stage in Lahore.

[16] He composed some ghazals, na`ats, and folk songs for her to perform, although she was keener on breaking into acting or playback singing.

[16] Once her vocational training finished, Jehan pursued a career in singing alongside her sister in Lahore, and would usually take part in the live song and dance performances prior to screenings of films in cinemas.

[16] Mukhtar Begum (not to be confused with actress Sabiha Khanum) encouraged the sisters to join film companies and recommended them to various producers.

[16] Her older sisters were offered jobs with one of the Seth Sukh Karnani companies, Indira Movietone, and they went on to be known as the Punjab Mail.

[16] She then acted in a film called Missar Ka Sitara (1936) by the same company and sang in it for music composer Damodar Sharma.

[16] One of her popular songs from that period, "Shala Jawaniyan Maney" is from Dalsukh Pancholi's Punjabi film Gul Bakawli (1939).

[21] In 1947, Rizvi and Jehan decided to move to Pakistan, upon the independence of the British Indian Empire, and had resulted in partition of India.

Jehan's second film in Pakistan was Dupatta (1952) which was produced by Aslam Lodhi, directed by Sibtain Fazli and assisted by A. H. Rana as production manager.

[16] The pressure of being a mother of six children and the demands of being a wife to another fellow film actor, forced her to give up her career.

[16] She sang a large number of duets with Ahmed Rushdi, Mehdi Hassan, Masood Rana, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Mujeeb Aalam.

[16] The website Women on Record stated: "Noor Jehan injected a degree of passion into her singing unmatched by anyone else.

[24] She has also sung "Saiyan Saadey Naal", a song of well-known Pakistani folk singer, songwriter and composer Akram Rahi [pa] for the film Dam Mast Kalander/Aalmi Gunday.

[25] In 1947, Shaukat Rizvi decided to migrate to Pakistan, and Noor Jehan moved too, ending her career in India.

[30] Jehan suffered from chest pains in 1986 on a tour of North America and was diagnosed with angina pectoris, after which she underwent bypass surgery.

[31] In the wake of her death, a famous Indian writer and poet, Javed Akhtar, in an interview in Mumbai, said that "In the worst conditions of our relations with Pakistan in 53 years, in a very hostile atmosphere, our cultural heritage has been a common bridge.