Shamshad Begum was born in Lahore, British India (present-day Pakistan) on 14 April 1919 in a Punjabi Mann Jatt Muslim Family , the day after the Jallianwala Bagh massacre took place in nearby Amritsar. She was one of eight children, five sons and three daughters, born to a conservative muslim family of limited means. Her father, Mian Hussain Baksh Maan, worked as a mechanic and her mother, Ghulam Fatima, was a pious lady of conservative disposition, a devoted wife and mother who raised her children with traditional family values.