His father, Mohammad Akhtar, "from a hardworking economically unprivileged family of the Gujjar community", who worked as a night watchman at a petrol station belonging to the Attock oil refinery, married his mother, Hameeda Awan, when she was still a teenager, and they had five children: four sons, Shoaib being the fourth after Shahid, Tahir and Obaid, followed by a daughter, Shumaila.