Muhammad Ali Jinnah: personal profile, early life, professions, political career

The first governor general of Pakistan Muhammed Ali Jinnah Political Career, Achievements, Awards

The founder and the first Governor General of the state of Pakistan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah was one of the most influential political leaders in the Indian subcontinent during the British rule.

Born on the Christmas day in 1876 in Karachi, Muhammed Ali Jinnah was the son of a middle-class Gujarati Merchant, Jinnahbhai Poonja and Mithibai. At the age of 16, he was offered with an opportunity to work as an apprentice in Sir Frederick Leigh Croft’s company, ‘Graham's Shipping and Trading Company’, he decided to move to London in 1892. But being an ambitious teenager, he later resigned from the apprenticeship of the shipping company and started pursuing law to become a barrister. He joined the Lincoln's Inn and in 1895 was called to the bar in England.

A lawyer by profession, this eminent politician and statesman held several important positions in his lifetime and gradually became instrumental in the creation of Pakistan. An intellectual and a good orator, his life is shrouded in several controversies.

During the first part of his political career, he was hailed as an ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity by prominent leaders as Tilak and Nehru. Even as the demand for a separate country for Indian Muslims started to surface Jinnah advocated for a unified India as he believed that the Muslim traditions and rights are safe in a unified India.

During the 1930s and 1940s, there came a fundamental shift in his thinking and differences started arising between Jinnah and the Congress leaders. He began to drift towards the demand for a separate country for Muslims and successfully negotiated the creation of Pakistan with the British. As a mark of respect, Pakistanis call him Quaid-e-Azam which means "the great leader".