Background

Muhammad Ali Jinnah was born on December 25, 1876, in Karachi, Pakistan (then Bombay Presidency, British India). He was the eldest of seven children of Jinnahbhai Poonja, a prosperous merchant, and his wife, Mithibai. His family was a member of the Khoja caste, Hindus who had converted to Islam centuries earlier and who were followers of the Aga Khan. There is some question about Jinnah’s date of birth: although he maintained that it was December 25, 1876, school records from Karachi (Pakistan) give a date of October 20, 1875.

Education

After being educated at home, Jinnah was sent in 1887 to the Sind Madrasat al-Islam (now Sindh Madressatul Islam University) in Karachi. Later he attended the Christian Missionary Society High School (also in Karachi), where at the age of 16 he passed the matriculation examination of the University of Bombay (now the University of Mumbai, in Mumbai, India). On the advice of an English friend, his father decided to send him to England to acquire business experience. Jinnah, however, had made up his mind to become a barrister. In keeping with the custom of the time, his parents arranged for an early marriage for him before he left for England.

In London, Jinnah joined Lincoln's Inn, one of the legal societies that prepared students for the bar. In 1896, at the age of 19, he was called to the bar. While in London Jinnah suffered two severe bereavements - the deaths of his wife and his mother. Nevertheless, he completed his formal studies and also made a study of the British political system, frequently visiting the House of Commons. He was greatly influenced by the liberalism of William E. Gladstone, who had become prime minister for the fourth time in 1892, the year of Jinnah’s arrival in London. Jinnah also took a keen interest in the affairs of India and in Indian students. When the Parsi leader Dadabhai Naoroji, a leading Indian nationalist, ran for the British Parliament, Jinnah and other Indian students worked day and night for him. Their efforts were crowned with success: Naoroji became the first Indian to sit in the House of Commons.

Career

When Jinnah returned to Karachi in 1896, he found that his father’s business had suffered losses and that he now had to depend on himself. He decided to start his legal practice in Bombay (now Mumbai), but it took him years of work to establish himself as a lawyer. It was nearly 10 years later that he turned actively toward politics.

Jinnah first entered politics by participating in the 1906 session of the Indian National Congress (Congress Party) held at Calcutta (now Kolkata), in which the party began to split between those calling for dominion status and those advocating independence for India. Four years later he was elected to the Imperial Legislative Council - the beginning of a long and distinguished parliamentary career.

Jinnah's problem during the following years was to convert the Muslim League into an enlightened, unified political body prepared to cooperate with other organizations working for the good of India. In addition, he had to convince the Congress Party, as a prerequisite for political progress, of the necessity of settling the Hindu-Muslim conflict.

To bring about such a rapprochement was Jinnah's chief purpose during the late 1920s and early 1930s. He worked toward this end within the legislative assembly, at the Round Table Conference in London (1930-1932), and through his "14 points," which included proposals for a federal form of government, greater rights for minorities, one-third representation for Muslims in the central legislature, separation of the predominantly Muslim Sindh region from the rest of the Bombay province, and introduction of reforms in the North-West Frontier Province. His failure to bring about even minor amendments in the Nehru Committee proposals (1928) over the question of separate electorates and reservation of seats for Muslims in the legislatures frustrated him. He found himself in a peculiar position at that time: many Muslims thought that he was too nationalistic in his policy and that Muslim interests were not safe in his hands, while the Congress Party would not even meet the moderate Muslim demands halfway. Indeed, the Muslim League was a house divided against itself. The Punjab Muslim League repudiated Jinnah’s leadership and organized itself separately. In disgust, Jinnah decided to settle in England. From 1930 to 1935 he remained in London, devoting himself to practice before the Privy Council. But when constitutional changes were in the offing, he was persuaded to return home to head a reconstituted Muslim League.

Soon preparations started for the elections under the Government of India Act of 1935. Jinnah was still thinking in terms of cooperation between the Muslim League and the Hindu-Controlled Congress Party and with coalition governments in the provinces. But the elections of 1937 proved to be a turning point in the relations between the two organizations. Congress obtained an absolute majority in six provinces, and the league did not do particularly well. The Congress Party decided not to include the league in the formation of provincial governments, and exclusive all-Congress governments were the result. Relations between Hindus and Muslims started to deteriorate, and soon Muslim discontent became boundless.

To guard against the exclusion of Muslims from all prospects of advancement within India, Jinnah carried out a nationwide campaign to warn his coreligionists of the perils of their position, and he converted the Muslim League into a powerful instrument for unifying the Muslims into a nation.

At that point, Jinnah emerged as the leader of a renascent Muslim nation. Events began to move fast. On March 22–23, 1940, in Lahore, the league adopted a resolution to form a separate Muslim state, Pakistan. The Pakistan idea was at first ridiculed and then tenaciously opposed by the Congress Party. But it captured the imagination of the Muslims. Pitted against Jinnah were many influential Hindus, including Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. And the British government seemed to be intent on maintaining the political unity of the Indian subcontinent. But Jinnah led his movement with such skill and tenacity that ultimately both the Congress Party and the British government had no option but to agree to the partitioning of India. Pakistan thus emerged as an independent state in 1947.

Jinnah became the first head of the new state. Faced with the serious problems of a young country, he tackled Pakistan's problems with authority. He was not regarded as merely the governor-general. He was revered as the father of the nation. He worked hard until overpowered by age and disease in Karachi, the place of his birth, in 1948.

Achievements

• 

  Muhammad Ali Jinnah is commonly known in Pakistan as Quaid-e-Azam ("Great Leader") and Baba-e-Qaum ("Father of the Nation"). His birth and death anniversaries are national holidays in Pakistan. In Pakistan, Jinnah is honored with the official title Quaid-e-Azam, and he is depicted on all Pakistani rupee notes of denominations ten and higher and is the namesake of many Pakistani public institutions. The former Quaid-e-Azam International Airport, now called the Jinnah International Airport, in Karachi, is Pakistan's busiest. One of the largest streets in the Turkish capital Ankara - Cinnah Caddesi - is named after him. In Iran, one of the capital Tehran's most important new highways is also named after him, while the government released a stamp commemorating the centennial of Jinnah's birthday.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah: Some Rare Speeches and Statements, 1944-1947 1988
  • Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah: Speeches and Statements, 1947-1948 1989

Religion

Muhammad Ali Jinnah wasn't a religious zealot: he was a Muslim in a broad sense and had little to do with sects.

Politics

In Bombay, Jinnah came to know, among other important Congress Party personalities, Gopal Krishna Gokhale, the eminent Maratha leader. Greatly influenced by those nationalist politicians, Jinnah aspired during the early part of his political life to become "a Muslim Gokhale." Admiration for British political institutions and an eagerness to raise the status of India in the international community and to develop a sense of Indian nationhood among the peoples of India were the chief elements of his politics. At that time, he still looked upon Muslim interests in the context of Indian nationalism.

But, by the beginning of the 20th century, the conviction had been growing among the Muslims that their interests demanded the preservation of their separate identity rather than amalgamation in the Indian nation that would for all practical purposes be Hindu. Largely to safeguard Muslim interests, the All-India Muslim League was founded in 1906. But Jinnah remained aloof from it. Only in 1913, when authoritatively assured that the league was as devoted as the Congress Party to the political emancipation of India, did Jinnah join the league. When the Indian Home Rule League was formed, he became its chief organizer in Bombay and was elected president of the Bombay branch.

Jinnah's endeavors to bring about the political union of Hindus and Muslims earned him the title of "the best ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity," an epithet coined by Gokhale. It was largely through his efforts that the Congress Party and the Muslim League began to hold their annual sessions jointly, to facilitate mutual consultation and participation. In 1915 the two organizations held their meetings in Bombay and in 1916 in Lucknow, where the Lucknow Pact was concluded. Under the terms of the pact, the two organizations put their seal to a scheme of constitutional reform that became their joint demand vis-à-vis the British government. There was a good deal of give and take, but the Muslims obtained one important concession in the shape of separate electorates, already conceded to them by the government in 1909 but hitherto resisted by Congress.

Meanwhile, a new force in Indian politics had appeared in the person of Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi. Both the Home Rule League and the Congress Party had come under his sway. Opposed to Gandhi's non-cooperation movement and his essentially Hindu approach to politics, Jinnah left both the league and the Congress Party in 1920. For a few years, he kept himself aloof from the main political movements. He continued to be a firm believer in Hindu-Muslim unity and constitutional methods for the achievement of political ends. After his withdrawal from Congress, he used the Muslim League platform for the propagation of his views. But during the 1920s the Muslim League, and with it Jinnah, had been overshadowed by Congress and the religiously oriented Muslim Khilafat movement.

When the failure of the non-cooperation movement and the emergence of Hindu revivalist movements led to antagonism and riots between Hindus and Muslims, the Muslim League began to lose strength and cohesion, and provincial Muslim leaders formed their own parties to serve their needs. Thus, Jinnah's problem during the following years was to convert the Muslim League into an enlightened, unified political body prepared to cooperate with other organizations working for the good of India. In addition, he had to convince the Congress Party, as a prerequisite for political progress, of the necessity of settling the Hindu-Muslim conflict.

Jinnah had originally been dubious about the practicability of Pakistan, an idea that the poet and philosopher Sir Muhammad Iqbal had propounded to the Muslim League conference of 1930, but before long he became convinced that a Muslim homeland on the Indian subcontinent was the only way of safeguarding Muslim interests and the Muslim way of life. It was not religious persecution that he feared so much as the future exclusion of Muslims from all prospects of advancement within India, as soon as power became vested in the close-knit structure of Hindu social organization.

Views

In his first visit to East Pakistan, Jinnah stressed that Urdu alone should be the national language which was strongly opposed by the Bengali people of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), for the reason that they traditionally spoke Bangla (Bengali). He also worked for an agreement with India settling disputes regarding the division of assets.

Personality

A man without hobbies, Jinnah divided his interest between law and politics. His modesty is evidenced by his refusing a doctorate degree from Aligarh Muslim University, commenting that he had always been known as "Mr. Jinnah" and hoped he would die as plain Mr. Jinnah.

Physical Characteristics: Through the 1940s, Jinnah suffered from tuberculosis - only his sister and a few others close to Jinnah were aware of his condition. In 1948, Jinnah's health began to falter, hindered further by the heavy workload that had fallen upon him following Pakistan's creation. Attempting to recuperate, he spent many months at his official retreat in Ziarat but died on September 11, 1948, from a combination of tuberculosis and lung cancer.

Interests

• Politicians

  William E. Gladstone

• Sport & Clubs

  cricket

Connections

Muhammad Ali Jinnah had been married to a distant relative named Emibai, who is believed to have been either 14 or 16 years old at the time of their marriage, but she died shortly after he moved to London. His mother died around this time as well. In 1918, over tremendous opposition from her parents and others, Jinnah married Rattenbai Petit, the daughter of Sir Dinshaw Petit, a Bombay Parsi millionaire. The couple had one daughter, Dina, but the marriage proved an unhappy one and Jinnah and Rutti soon separated. It was his sister Fatima who gave him solace and company.

Father:

Jinnahbhai Poonja

Mother:

Mithibai Jinnah

late wife:

Emibai Jinnah

Wife:

Rattanbai Petit

Daughter:

Dina Wadia

Sister:

Mohtarma Fatima Jinnah

Acquaintance:

Mahatma Gandhi

Friend:

James MacDonald

References

• Mohammed Ali Jinnah
  2007
• Mohammed Ali Jinnah (1876-1948)
  2013
• Mohammed Ali Jinnah: Maker of Modern Pakistan
  1971