Quaid-i-Azam University intellectuals among its current and former faculty, researchers, or alumni since its establishment. They include Maleeha Lodhi, Nasim Zehra, Shamshad Akhtar, Suhail Zubairy, Farzana Aslam, Tasneem Zehra and Salma Zahid. The university is currently led by Dr. Javed Ashraf. The University of Islamabad was established on July 22, 1967 under the Act of National Assembly of Pakistan. It was renamed as Quaid-i-Azam University in honor of Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, founder of Pakistan in 1976 - which was the year of his birth centenary. However, the spelling of the University's name were kept different i.e. "i" was used instead of
Quaid-i-Azam University "e" for Ezāfe that links the two words in Jinnah's title Quaid-e-Azam. The University offered teaching and research programs for PhD and MPhil degrees in the beginning and later offered Master's programs. The University now offers undergraduate programs as well. Quaid-i-Azam University has four faculties and 38 departments, institutes, schools and centers. Quaid-i-Azam University consists of four faculties. The following departments, institutes/schools work under these faculties: Quaid-i-Azam University was ranked 651-700 in the world by the "QS World University Rankings" of 2018 and 133 in Asia. For QS Top 10 Asian universities, QAU was ranked 6th in the natural science