Muhammad Ali Jinnah born Mahomedali Jinnahbhai; 25 December 1876 – 11 September 1948) was a lawyer, politician, and the founder of Pakistan.
Jinnah served as leader of the All-India Muslim League from 1913 until
Pakistan's independence on 14 August 1947, and as Pakistan's first
Governor-General from independence until his death. He is revered in
Pakistan as Quaid-i-Azam (Great Leader) and Baba-i-Qaum[ (Father of the Nation). His birthday is observed as a national holiday.
Born
in Karachi and trained as a barrister at Lincoln's Inn in London,
Jinnah rose to prominence in the Indian National Congress
in the first two decades of the 20th century. In these early years of
his political career, Jinnah advocated Hindu–Muslim unity, helping to
shape the 1916 Lucknow Pact
between the Congress and the All-India Muslim League, a party in which
Jinnah had also become prominent. Jinnah became a key leader in the All
India Home Rule League, and proposed a fourteen-point constitutional
reform plan to safeguard the political rights of Muslims should a united
British India become independent. In 1920, however, Jinnah resigned
from the Congress when it agreed to follow a campaign of satyagraha, or non-violent resistance, advocated by the influential leader, Mohandas Gandhi.
By 1940, Jinnah had come to believe that Indian Muslims should have
their own state. In that year, the Muslim League, led by Jinnah, passed
the Lahore Resolution, demanding a separate nation. During the Second World War,
the League gained strength while leaders of the Congress were
imprisoned, and in the elections held shortly after the war, it won most
of the seats reserved for Muslims. Ultimately, the Congress and the
Muslim League could not reach a power-sharing formula for a united
India, leading all parties to agree to separate independence for a
predominately Hindu India, and for a Muslim-majority state, to be called
Pakistan.
As the first Governor-General of Pakistan, Jinnah
worked to establish
the new nation's government and policies, and to aid the millions of
Muslim migrants who had emigrated from the new nation of India to
Pakistan after the partition,
personally supervising the establishment of refugee camps. Jinnah died
at age 71 in September 1948, just over a year after Pakistan gained
independence from the British Raj. He left a deep and respected legacy
in Pakistan, though he is less well thought of in India. According to
his biographer, Stanley Wolpert, he remains Pakistan's greatest leader.
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