Muhammad Ali Jinnah was born on 25 December He was a twentieth-century lawyer, politician and statesman who is known as being the founder of Pakistan.

Jinnah was born in Jinnah family in Wazir Mansion, Karachi in Sindh, a region within the Bombay Presidency of British India. Some sources suggest that he was born in the town of Jhirk. Jinnah's first biographer, Sarojini Naidu, as well as his official passport, state the date of birth as 25 December Jinnah was the second child born to Mithibai and Jinnahbhai Poonja. His father was a prosperous Gujarati merchant who came from the region now known as Gujarat and subsequently moved to Karachi some time before Jinnah's birth. He had three brothers and three sisters, including Fatima Jinnah, all of whom became multilingual, speaking Gujarati, Kutchi, Sindhi and English. Jinnah 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.

Jinnah was offered an apprenticeship at the London office of Graham's Shipping and Trading Company, a business that had extensive dealings with Jinnahbhai Poonja's firm in Karachi. 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 also died. 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 the name Muhammad. This story, however, has not been proven. In three years, at age 19, he became the youngest Indian to be called to the bar in England. Jinnah had developed largely constitutionalist views on Indian self-government, and he condemned both the arrogance of British officials in India and the discrimination practiced by them against Indians. This idea of a nation legitimized by democratic principles and cultural commonalities was antithetical to the genuine diversity that had generally characterized the subcontinent.

During the final period of his stay in England, Jinnah came under considerable pressure to return home when his father's business was under a financial crisis. In 1896 he returned to India and settled in Bombay. Jinnah built a house in Malabar Hill, later known as Jinnah House. He became a lawyer, gaining particular fame for his skilled handling of the "Caucus Case". When he returned to India his faith in liberalism and progressive politics was confirmed through his close association with three Indian National Congress stalwarts Gopal Krishna Gokhale, Pherozeshah Mehta and Surendranath Banerjee. These people had an influence in his early life in England and they would influence his later involvement in Indian politics.

In 1906, Jinnah joined the Indian National Congress, which was the largest and one of the oldest democratic political parties of subcontinent. Like most of the Congress at the time, Jinnah did not favor outright independence, considering British influences on education, law, culture and industry as beneficial to India. Jinnah was instrumental in the passing of the Child Marriages Restraint Act, the legitimization of the Muslim waqf (religious endowments) and was appointed to the Sandhurst committee, which helped establish the Indian Military Academy in Dehra Dun. In April, 1913 he again went to England and met Ghokle. For providing Indian students a platform in England, he made London Indian Association. 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 on persuasion of Maulana Muhammad Ali Johar and Syed Wazir Hasan 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.

The 1946 British Cabinet Mission to India released a plan on 16 May, calling for a united Indian state comprising considerably autonomous provinces, and called for "groups" of provinces formed on the basis of religion. A second plan released on 16 June, called for the separation of India along religious lines, with princely states to choose between accession to the dominion of their choice or independence. Jinnah gave a precise definition of the term 'Pakistan' in 1941 at Lahore. While giving an interview to American press representatives in July 1942, when asked by one of the journalists whether the Muslims were a nation or not, Jinnah replied: We are a nation with our own distinctive culture and civilization, language and literature, art and architecture, names and nomenclature, sense of values and proportion, legal laws and moral codes, customs and calendar, history and traditions, aptitudes and ambitions, in short, we have our own distinctive outlook on life and of life. By all canons of international law we are a nation. 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. The independent state of Pakistan, was created on 14 August 1947

Made by : Aagosh Saluja