Pervez Musharraf was born on 11 August 1943.

He is a retired four-star general who served as the 13th Chief of Army Staff and tenth President of Pakistan as well as tenth Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. Musharraf headed and led an administrative military government from October 1999 till August 2007. He ruled Pakistan as Chief Executive from 1999 to 2001 and as President from 2001 to 2008. Facing impeachment, he preferred to resign on 18 August 2008.

He was born on 11 August 1943 in Delhi, British India, four years before the partition of India. He is the son of Syed and Zarin Musharraf. Syed graduated from Aligarh Muslim University and was a civil servant for the British. Zarin was born in the early 1920s.Musharraf's first childhood home was called neharwali haveli, literally "mansion by the canal". The house, located at the epicenter of India's ruling Mughal elite, is so large that in 2001 it housed eight different families. Syed Ahmed Khan's family lived adjacent to the home. The home's title deeds were written entirely in Urdu except for his father's English signature.

Musharraf and his family left for Pakistan on one of the last safe trains in August 1947, a few days before the partition of India took effect. His father began to work for the new Pakistani government and eventually joined the Foreign Ministry. In his autobiography Line of Fire, Musharraf elaborates on his first experience with death, after falling out of a mango tree.

Musharraf's family moved to Ankara in 1949, when his father became part of a diplomatic deputation from Pakistan to Turkey. He learned to speak Turkish. He had a dog named Whiskey that gave him a "lifelong love for dogs". He often played sports in his youth. He left Turkey in 1956.

He returned to Pakistan in 1957. He attended Saint Patrick's School in Karachi and Forman Christian College in Lahore.

In 1961, at age of 18, Musharraf entered the prestigious Pakistan Military Academy at Kakul. He joined the Pakistan Army in 1964 and was placed in an artillery regiment. During his college years in PMA and initial joint military testings, Musharraf shared a room with PQ Mehdi of PAF and Abdul Aziz Mirza of Navy and after giving the exams and entranace interviews, all three cadets went to watch a world-acclaimed Urdu film, Savera, with his inter-services and college friends, Musharraf recalls, "In the Line of Fire" published in 2006. With his friends, Musharraf passed the standardize, physical, psychological, and officer-training exams, he also took discussions involving the socioeconomics issues; all three were interviewed by joint military officers who were designated as Commandants. The next day, Musharraf along with PQ Mehdi and Mirza reported to PMA and were selected for their respected training in their arms of commission.

Finally in 1964, Musharraf graduated with a 29th PMA Long Course together with Ali Kuli Khan and his life-long friend Abdul Aziz Mirza (later four-star admiral). During this time, Musharraf maintained his friendship and contact with Mirza through letters and telephones even in difficult times when Mirza, after joining the Navy Special Service Group, was stationed in East-Pakistan as a military advisor to East Pakistan Army.

Musharraf was a lieutenant colonel in 1974 and a colonel in 1978. As staff officer in the 1980s, he studied and taught at Command and Staff College and National Defense University. One of his professor at NDU was general Jehangir Karamat who served Musharraf's guidance counselor and instructor who had significant influence on Musharraf's philosophy and critical thinking.He did not play any significant role in Pakistan's proxy war in the 1979–89 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In 1987, he became a brigade commander of a new division of the SSG near Siachen Glacier. He was personally chosen by then-President and chief of army staff general Zia-ul-Haq for this assignment due to Musharraf's wide experience in mountain and arctic warfare.In September 1987, an assault was launched under the command of Musharraf at Bilafond La before being pushed back.