Maulana Azam Tariq (March 1962 - October 2003) was the co-founder of the Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) along with Haq Nawaz Jhangvi, whom he regarded as his mentor. After Jhangvi’s assassination in 1990, Tariq became the leader of the SSP. In 2001, Musharraf banned the SSP and Tariq was arrested.

Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi (1954-1990) is the founder of Sipah-i-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), a Sunni sectarian organization involved in numerous attacks against the Shia minority in Pakistan. He was born in Jhang in Punjab and qualified as an alim (Islamic scholar) from the Islamic university in Multan.

Hafiz Muhammad Saeed (b 1950) is the amir of Jamaat ud Dawa (JD) widely regarded as an alias for the Lahkar-e-Taiba (LeT) banned as a terrorist organization by India, the US, UK and the European Union. In December 2008, the United Nations also declared Jamma-ud Dawa a terrorist organization.

Abu Zubayda (b March 1971) is an alleged al-Qaeda operative currently held in Guantanamo Bay. Born in Saudi Arabia he travelled to Afghanistan/Pakistan in 1991 to fight alongside the Mujahideen in the Afghan civil war.

Mullah Muhammad Omar (b 1959), an ethnic Pushtun, is the spiritual head of the Taliban and was the Amir of Afghanistan from 1994-2001. He participated in the anti-Soviet jihad during the 80s. In 1994, he led a successful uprising against former Mujahideen warlords in the Kandahar area, which earned him wide respect.

Safwat Hijazi is a controversial Egyptian prayer leader, televangelist, and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Hijazi spent 1990-1998 in Saudi Arabia where he studied under different Saudi clerics in Medina. He has been a member of the Muslim Brotherhood since his first year in high school.

Maulana Fazlur Rahman (b. June 19, 1953) heads the pro-Taliban Jamiat-Ulema-i-Islam-Fazlur Rehman (JUI-F), a faction of the Deobandi Jamiat-ul Ulema-i-Islam (JUI) party formed in November 1945. His father, Maulana Mufti Mahmoud, was an Islamic scholar and politician who was the North West Frontier Provinces (NWFP)'s chief minister in the 1970s.

Shahbaz Bhatti (1968-2011) was the Federal Minister for Minorities under the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government from 2008 until his death in 2011. He was an outspoken critic of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws and strongly supported their reform.

Yousaf Raza Gillani (b 9 June 1952) is the 22nd prime minister of Pakistan and assumed that office in March 2008. He began his political career in 1978 as member of the Central Working Committee of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML). He served as Federal Minister for Housing and Works and later for Railways between 1985 and 1986.

Salmaan Taseer (1944-2011) a businessman and politician was a member of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and, at the time of his death, the Governor of Punjab, Pakistan’s largest province. He joined the PPP under Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and was active in the movement against Bhutto’s arrest and death sentence.