Background
Salim Ali was born on November 12, 1896, into a Sulaimani Bohra Muslim family in Bombay, the ninth and youngest child of Moizuddin. His father died when he was a year old and his mother Zeenat-un-nissa died when he was three. Along with his siblings, Ali was brought up by his maternal uncle, Amiruddin Tyabji, and childless aunt, Hamida Begum, in a middle-class household in Khetwadi, Mumbai.