Encyclopedia of Islam

jihad movements

  

399  J

---

movements

; s

hamil

; 

terrorism

; W

ahhabism

; W

est

a

Frica

.

Caleb Elfenbein

Further reading: Fawaz A. Gerges, Journey of the Jihad-

ist: Inside Muslim Militancy (Orlando, Fla.: Harcourt, 

2006); Gilles Kepel, Jihad: The Trail of Political Islam

(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002); 

Ahmed Rashid, Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Cen-

tral Asia (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 

2002); William R. Roff, “Islamic Movements: One or 

Many?” In Islam and the Political Economy of Meaning: 

Comparative Studies of Muslim Discourse edited by Wil-

liam R. Roff, 31–52 (London: Croom Helm, and Berke-

ley: University of California Press, 1987).

Jinnah, Muhammad Ali

 

(“the greatest 

leader”: Qaid-i Azam, Quaid-i Azam)

   

(1876–1948)  leading Muslim politician in 

prepartition India and first governor-general  

of Pakistan

Muhammad Ali Jinnah was born in Karachi 

(now in Pakistan) to a successful Ismaili Khoja 

family from Gujarat. In his youth, he attended a 

Muslim school, but he obtained his high school 

edUcation

 from a Christian missionary school 

in Karachi. At the age of 17, instead of attending 

the University of Bombay, Jinnah was sent by his 

family to London to work as an apprentice in an 

international trading firm that did business with 

his father, Jinnahbhai (d. 1901). He never com-

pleted his apprenticeship but was drawn to study 

law at Lincoln’s Inn instead. At the age of 19, he 

became the youngest Indian ever to be admitted to 

the English bar. He also took an interest in British 

politics, attending sessions of the House of Com-

mons during his sojourn in London and helping 

an Indian politician become the first member 

from that country to be elected to this legislative 

body. In 1896, he was obliged to return to i

ndia

because his father’s business had failed.

The Jinnah who came back to India had 

become Anglicized—his austere demeanor, dress, 

and personal habits were more English than 

Gujarati. He earned a good reputation as a civil 

attorney in Bombay (now known as Mumbai), one 

of India’s most important ports and commercial 

centers. He became caught up in the nationalist 

movement that was seeking to win a greater role 

for Indians in the British colonial government as 

well as a greater share of the civil service jobs. 

The most important body of nationalists was the 

Indian National Congress (INC), which had been 

established in Bombay in 1885, and Jinnah became 

an active member starting in 1906. As the Indian 

nationalist movement shifted to seeking actual 

independence from British rule, Muslim elites in 

northern India became increasingly concerned 

about their eventual minority status in a nation 

that would be dominated by a Hindu majority, 

Muhammad Ali Jinnah with his sister Fatime on his 72nd 

birthday (1947), Karachi, Pakistan 

(Corbis/Bettmann)

K  400