Mohammad Ali Jinnah

Lawyer, Leader, Founder of Pakistan

Born: December 25, 1876, Karachi
Died: September 11, 1948, Karachi 
Height: 1.78 m
Spouse: Emibai Jinnah (m. 1892–1893)
Education: Trinity College, Oxford, University of Mumbai 
Children: Dina Wadia

Scion of a business family, Mohammad Ali Jinnah was sent off to London at a young age to boost family business. Instead, he took admission in Lincoln’s Inn, a law school, on whose facade was inscribed the name of Prophet Mu­hammad as the most eminent law-giver in human history. He returned to India a lawyer. The British government offered him a job but he chose to set up his own law practice. Introduced to politics during his stay in London, where he took part in the election campaign of the Indian-born Dadabhoy Naoroji, Jinnah joined the Indian National Congress. Soon disappointed by the anti- Muslim stance of the Hindu-dominated Congress, he joined All India Muslim League which, under his visionary leadership, swept elections in Muslim- majority provinces. His 14 point agenda for constitutional reforms surprised the Congress leadership as well as the British rulers.

Jinnah advocated the Two Nation theory which implied that the Hindus and Muslims were two separate nations with different sets of religious and cultural values that contradicted each other. He demanded a separate homeland com­prising Muslim majority provinces. This demand took the shape of the Lahore Resolution (1940) which was a turning point in politics in British India, and culminated in partition of India and creation of Pakistan. With the force of Muslim nation behind him, and with his dedicated lieutenants, he managed to carve out a new country for Indian Muslims, a great deed that elevated his name to the few great nation builders of the world.

As Pakistan’s first Governor General, Jinnah lived only a little over one year, devoting all the energy left in him to serve the new nation. His vision, thoughts, speeches and addresses have to be revisited to make Pakistan the great country that great Muslim thinkers like Iqbal had dreamed of.

“We are now all Pakistanis—not Balochs, Pathans, Sindhis, Bengalis, Punjabis and so on—and as Pakistanis we must feel, behave and act, and we should be proud to be known as Pakistanis and nothing else".

Reply to the Civic Address presented by the Quetta Municipality on June 15, 1948.