Source: www.life-memo.com, ” Quaid-E Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah “

Fathers name: Jinnahbhai Poonja

Mothers name: Mitthibhai Poonja

Studies: Law

Profession: Lawyer

Early Life And Education

Muhammad Ali Jinnah was the first child born to Mithibai and Jinnahbhai Poonja in a Gujarati family in Wazir Mansion Karachi on December 25, 1876 . He was a lawyer, politician, statesman and the founder of Pakistan. He is popularly and officially known in Pakistan as Quaid-e-Azam (“Great Leader”) and Baba-e-Qaum(“Father of the Nation”). His grandfather, Poonja Gokuldas Meghji, was a Hindu from Paneli village in Gondal state in Kathiawar who had converted to Islam. Jinnah’s family belonged to the Ismaili Khoja branch of Shi’a Islam,though Jinnah later converted to Twelver Khoja Shi’a Islam. The first-born Jinnah was soon joined by six siblings: three brothers—Ahmad Ali, Bunde Ali, and Rahmat Ali—and three sisters: Maryam, Fatima and Shireen. Jinnah was a great but restless student and studied at several schools: first at the Sindh-Madrasa-tul-Islam in Karachi; then briefly at the Gokal Das Tej Primary School in Bombay; and finally at the Christian Missionary Society High School in Karachi, where at the age of 16, he passed the matriculation examination of the University of Bombay. Before he left for England in 1892, at his mother’s urging, he married his distant cousin—Emibai Jinnah, who was two years his junior. she died a few months later. During his sojourn in England, his mother too would pass away. In London, Jinnah soon gave up the apprenticeship to study law instead, by joining Lincoln’s Inn. It is said that the sole reason of Jinnah’s joining Lincoln’s Inn is that the main entrance to the Lincoln’s Inn had the names of the world’s all-time top-ten lawgivers, and that this list was led by Muhammad. This story, however, has no basis in fact. In three years, at age 19, he became the youngest Indian to be called to the bar in England.
During his student years in England, Jinnah came under the spell of 19th-century British liberalism, like many other future Indian independence leaders. This education included exposure to the idea of the democratic nation and progressive politics.

Political Struggle And Acheivements

In 1906, Jinnah joined the Indian National Congress, which was the largest Indian political organization. Like most of the Congress at the time, Jinnah did not favour outright independence, considering British influences on education, law, culture and industry as beneficial to India. Jinnah became a member on the 60-member Imperial Legislative Council. The council had no real power, and included a large number of un-elected pro-Raj loyalists and Europeans.Jinnah had initially avoided joining the All India Muslim League, founded in 1906, regarding it as too Muslim oriented. However, he decided to provide leadership to the Muslim minority. Eventually, he joined the League in 1913 and became the president at the 1916 session in Lucknow. Jinnah was the architect of the 1916 Lucknow Pact between the Congress and the League, bringing them together on most issues regarding self-government and presenting a united front to the British. In 1924, Jinnah reorganized the Muslim League, of which he had been president since 1916, and devoted the next seven years attempting to bring about unity among the disparate ranks of Muslims and to develop a rational formula to effect a Hindu-Muslim settlement, which he considered the pre condition for Indian freedom. He attended several unity conferences, wrote the Delhi Muslim Proposals in 1927, pleaded for the incorporation of the basic Muslim demands in the Nehru report. Jinnah broke with the Congress in 1920 when the Congress leader, Mohandas Gandhi, launched a Non-Cooperation Movement against the British, which Jinnah disapproved of. Unlike most Congress leaders, Gandhi did not wear western-style clothing, did his best to use an Indian language instead of English, and was deeply rooted in Indian culture. Gandhi’s local style of leadership gained great popularity with the Indian people. Jinnah criticized Gandhi’s support of the Khilafat Movement, which he saw as an endorsement of religious zealotry. Jinnah quit the Congress, with a prophetic warning that Gandhi’s method of mass struggle would lead to divisions between Hindus and Muslims and within the two communities. Becoming president of the Muslim League, Jinnah was drawn into a conflict between a pro-Congress faction and a pro-British faction. In 1941, Muhammad Ali Jinnah founded Dawn, a major newspaper that helped him propagate the League’s point of views. Jinnah felt that the state of Pakistan should stand upon true Islamic tradition in culture, civilization and national identity rather than on the principles of Islam as a theocratic state.
In 1937, Jinnah further defended his ideology of equality in his speech to the All-India Muslim League in Lucknow where he stated, “Settlement can only be achieved between equals.” He also had a rebuttal to Nehru’s statement which argued that the only two parties that mattered in India were the British Raj and INC. Jinnah stated that the Muslim League was the third and “equal partner” within Indian politics.Jinnah became the first Governor-General of Pakistan and president of its constituent assembly.Pakistanis view Jinnah as their revered founding father, a man that was dedicated to safeguarding Muslim interests during the dying days of the British Raj. Most of the Pakistanis take Jinnah as hero for their personal lives.