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Famous
Personalities
Muhammad Ali Johar (1878-1931)
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Do not send me back to a colonized state, for I want to
go back and live in an independent country.'
Maulana
Mohammad Ali Johar. [ 1930 ]. |
'Early life
Mohammad Ali was born in Rampur state in 1878 to a family of
Rohilla Pashtun ancestry. He was the brother of Maulana
Shaukat Ali. Despite the early death of his father, the
family strived and Ali attended the Aligarh Muslim
University and Lincoln College, Oxford University in 1898,
studying modern history.
Upon his return to India, he served as education director
for the Rampur state, and later joined the Baroda civil
service. He became a brilliant writer and orator, and wrote
for major English and Indian newspapers, in both English and
Urdu. He himself launched the Urdu weekly Hamdard and
English Comrade in 1911. He moved to Delhi in 1913.
Mohammad Ali worked hard to expand the AMU, then known as
the Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College, and was one of the
co-founders of the Jamia Millia Islamia in 1920, which was
later moved to Delhi.
Khilafat and Political Activities
Mohammed Ali had attended the founding meeting of the All
India Muslim League in Dhaka in 1906, and served as its
president in 1918. He remained active in the League till
1928.
Ali represented the Muslim delegation that travelled to
England in 1919 in order to convince the British government
to influence the Turkish nationalist Mustafa Kemal not to
depose the Sultan of Turkey, who was the Caliph of Islam.
British rejection of their demands resulted in the formation
of the Khilafat committee which directed Muslims all over
India to protest and boycott the government. |
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Islamic scholar Muhammad Ali Johar was a dynamic leader best
known for his leadership of the Khilafah movement, in whose
capacity he was influential even among non-Muslims like Mohandas
Gandhi.
As a journalist, he established the English weekly newspaper
“Comrade” from Calcutta in 1911, and the Urdu weekly “Hamdard”
in 1913 from Delhi. He had also been published in English
newspapers like the Manchester Guardian and The Observer.
Like other stalwarts of the Pakistan movement, his concern for
Muslim issues was prominent in his activism. What sets him apart
from the other leaders of the movement though, is his active
support for causes outside the subcontinent. Prominent among
these was his championing of the cause of the Islamic Khilafah,
which collapsed in 1924. He was jailed between 1911 and 1915 for
his support of this cause. In 1915, he became the main leader of
the Khilafah movement and led a delegation of Indian Muslims to
London for this cause in 1920.
It is important to note that the Khilafah movement was not only just
focused on the Islamic world and the preservation of the Ottoman
Caliphate. Another aspect of it promoted the freedom of all
colonized people and nations. This aspect of the movement gained
support from non-Muslim leaders as well, including India’s
Mohandas Gandhi.
A former member of the Indian National Congress, he left the
party in 1928.
Maulana Muhammad Ali Johar died in London and was buried in
Jerusalem. He had asked in his will that he be buried there
because he did not want to return to a “slave country”.
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The
Khilafah Movement