Mohammad Ali opened his eyes in the land of Rampur, India in 1878. He belonged to the family of strugglers as his brother Shaukat Ali was also a passionate leader in the Pakistan movement and his mother Abadi Bano Begum who educated both his sons in the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College, Aligarh. The lady pushed her sons to struggle for a separate land for the Muslims of the Sub-continent. Mohammad Ali was brilliant in studies and completed his graduation in Modern history and his love for history led him to study the history of Islam.
He served as an education director for the state of Rampur and then joined civil service. The versatile Mohammad Ali was a good writer. He used to write in different newspapers like “The Times”, “The Observer” and “The Manchester Guardian” and in some others. Moreover, he was a great orator and had been participating in different campaigns against British rule. The brave leader was no less than anyone and had launched his weekly “The Comrade” in English from Calcutta. He used the language of British to address them. After that, he started to publish an Urdu-language daily “Hamdard” as well. His love for education forced him to work for the expansion of Aligarh Muslim University and he was known to be the co=founders of the Jamia Millia Islamia in 1920.
His religious zeal led him to actively participate in the Khilafat movement. He had remained the president of the Indian National Congress. He was the one who persuaded the Muslims to move to London for Round Table Conference. In the Round Table the great leader spoke out with determinism and it became his last speech. He said; “I want to go back to my country, with the substance of freedom in my hand. Otherwise, I will not go back to a slave country. I would even prefer to die in a foreign country so long as it is a free country, and if you do not give me freedom in India you will have to give me a grave here.”
After soon the fearless Mohammad Ali passed away in London in 1931 and was buried in the courtyard of Masjid-ul-Aqsa in Jerusalem. Indeed a real example of a true leader.
