Historical Figure
Muhammad Ali Jinnah
1876–1948
Founder and 1st Governor-General of Pakistan (1876–1948)
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Biography
Muhammad Ali Jinnah was a barrister, politician, and the founder of Pakistan. Jinnah served as the leader of the All-India Muslim League from 1913 until the inception of Pakistan on 14 August 1947 and then as Pakistan's first governor-general until his death a year later in 1948.
In Their Own Words (5)
Pakistan not only means freedom and independence but Muslims ideology which has to be preserved which has come to us a precious gift and treasure and which we hope, others will share with us.
Address to Frontier Muslim Students Federation 18 June 1945. , 1948
"We are starting the state with no discrimination ... we should keep that in front of us as our ideal, and you will find that in course of time Hindus will cease to be Hindus and Muslims will cease to be Muslims, not in the religious sense, because that is the personal faith of each individual, but in the political sense as the citizens of the nation.
Muhammad Ali Jinnah, on the day he was elected president of the Pakistan Constituent Assembly, Jinnah in a moving speech, quoted in M. J. Akbar, India: The Siege Within (Harmondsworth, England: Penguin, 1985) p 34. As quoted from Ibn, W. (2004). Leaving Islam: Apostates speak out. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books. , 2004
Our object should be peace within, and peace without. We want to live peacefully and maintain cordial friendly relations with our immediate neighbours and with the world at large.
Address in Lahore (15 August 1947) , 1948
There is no power on earth that can undo Pakistan.
Speech at a rally at the University Stadium, Lahore 30 October 1947. , 1948
Think a hundred times before you take any decision, but once a decision is taken, stand by it as one man.
Address to the League Lucknow session in 1937, following elections held under the Government of India Act, as quoted in Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Founder of Pakistan (1976) by Ziauddin Ahmad Suleri, p. 1 , 1948
Timeline
The story of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, told in moments.
Joins the All-India Muslim League while remaining a member of the Indian National Congress. He's called the 'ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity.' He believes in a united, secular India. He'll change his mind.
Presides over the Lahore Resolution. One hundred thousand Muslims gather in Minto Park. The resolution doesn't use the word 'Pakistan.' But it demands separate Muslim states in northwest and northeast India. The two-nation theory is now official policy.
Pakistan becomes an independent state. Jinnah is sworn in as Governor-General the next day. He's 71, secretly dying of tuberculosis, and hasn't told anyone. In his first address he says Pakistan will be a state where religion is 'not the business of the state.'
Dies of tuberculosis and lung cancer in Karachi. He's been in office 13 months. His ambulance breaks down on the road from the airport. He waits in the heat for a replacement. His only daughter Dina, whom he'd disowned for marrying a Parsi, doesn't come to the funeral.
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