Mohammad Ali Jouhar

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Not to be confused with Muhammad Ali (writer), also known as Maulana Muhammad Ali.

Muhammad Ali Jauhar
Born(1878-12-10)10 December 1878 [1]
Rampur, Rampur State, British India [1]
Died 4 January 1931(1931-01-04) (aged 52) [1]
Jerusalem, Palestine [2]
Occupation Journalist, scholar, political activist, poet
Known for Khilafat movement
Political party Indian National Congress
All-India Muslim League
Spouse(s)
Amjadi Bano Begum(m. 1902–1931)
Parent(s) Abdul Ali Khan (father)
Abadi Bano Begum (mother) [3]

Muhammad Ali Jauhar (10 December 1878 – 4 January 1931), also known as Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar (Arabic: مَولانا مُحمّد علی جَوہر), was an Indian Muslim leader, activist, scholar, journalist and a poet, and was among the leading figures of the Khilafat Movement.

British Raj British rule on the Indian subcontinent, 1858–1947

The British Raj was the rule by the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent from 1858 to 1947. The rule is also called Crown rule in India, or direct rule in India. The region under British control was commonly called India in contemporaneous usage, and included areas directly administered by the United Kingdom, which were collectively called British India, and those ruled by indigenous rulers, but under British tutelage or paramountcy, and called the princely states. The whole was also more formally called the Indian Empire . As India, it was a founding member of the League of Nations, a participating nation in the Summer Olympics in 1900, 1920, 1928, 1932, and 1936, and a founding member of the United Nations in San Francisco in 1945.

Journalist person who collects, writes and distributes news and other information

A journalist is a person who collects, writes, or distributes news or other current information to the public. A journalist's work is called journalism. A journalist can work with general issues or specialize in certain issues. However, most journalists tend to specialize, and by cooperating with other journalists, produce journals that span many topics. For example, a sports journalist covers news within the world of sports, but this journalist may be a part of a newspaper that covers many different topics.

Khilafat Movement pan-Islamist protest movement in India

The Khilafat movement, also known as the Indian Muslim movement (1919–24), was a pan-Islamist political protest campaign launched by Muslims of British India led by Shaukat Ali, Mohammad Ali Jauhar and Abul Kalam Azad to restore the caliph of the Ottoman Caliphate, who was considered the leader of Sunni Muslims, as an effective political authority. It was a protest against the humiliating sanctions placed on the caliph and the Ottoman Empire after the First World War by the Treaty of Sèvres.

Contents

Mohammad Ali Jauhar was a product of the Aligarh Movement.

The Aligarh Movement was the push to establish a modern system of education for the Muslim population of British India, during the later decades of the 19th century. The movement′s name derives from the fact that its core and origins lay in the city of Aligarh in Northern India and, in particular, with the foundation of the Mohammedan Anglo Oriental Collegiate School in 1875. The founder of the oriental college, and the other educational institutions that developed from it, was Sir Syed Ahmed Khan. He became the leading light of the wider Aligarh Movement.

He was elected to become the President of Indian National Congress party in 1923 and it lasted only for a few months. He was also one of the founders and presidents of the All-India Muslim League. [2]

Indian National Congress Major political party in India

The Indian National Congress(pronunciation ) is a broadly based political party in India. Founded in 1885, it was the first modern nationalist movement to emerge in the British Empire in Asia and Africa. From the late 19th century, and especially after 1920, under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, Congress became the principal leader of the Indian independence movement. Congress led India to independence from Great Britain, and powerfully influenced other anti-colonial nationalist movements in the British Empire.

All-India Muslim League political party within the Indian Empire

The All-India Muslim League was a political party established in 1906 in the British Indian Empire. Its strong advocacy for the establishment of a separate Muslim-majority nation-state, Pakistan, successfully led to the partition of British India in 1947 by the British Empire.

Early life and career

Mohammad Ali was born in 1878 in Najibabad Uttar Pradesh, India). [1] His father, Abdul Ali Khan, died when he was five years old. [3] His brothers were Shaukat, who became a leader of the Khilafat Movement, and Zulfiqar. His mother Abadi Begum (1852–1924), affectionately known as Bi Amma, inspired her sons to take up the mantle of the struggle for freedom from Colonial rule. To this end, she was adamant that her sons were properly educated. [3]

Uttar Pradesh State in India

Uttar Pradesh is a state in northern India. With over 200 million inhabitants, it is the most populous state in India as well as the most populous country subdivision in the world. It was created on 1 April 1937 as the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh during British rule, and was renamed Uttar Pradesh in 1950. The state is divided into 18 divisions and 75 districts with the capital being Lucknow. The main ethnic group is the Hindavi people, forming the demographic plurality. On 9 November 2000, a new state, Uttarakhand, was carved out from the state's Himalayan hill region. The two major rivers of the state, the Ganga and Yamuna, join at Allahabad (Prayagraj) and then flow as the Ganga further east. Hindi is the most widely spoken language and is also the official language of the state.

Shaukat Ali (politician) Indian activist

Maulana Shaukat Ali was an Indian Muslim leader of the Khilafat Movement that erupted in response to the fall of the Ottoman Empire. He was the elder brother of the renowned political leader Mohammad Ali Jouhar.

Despite the early death of his father, Jouhar attended the Darul Uloom, Aligarh Muslim University and, in 1898, Lincoln College, Oxford, studying modern history. [4]

Darul Uloom Deoband madrasah

The Darul Uloom Deoband is the Darul uloom Islamic school in India where the Sunni Deobandi Islamic movement began. It is located at Deoband, a town in Saharanpur district, Uttar Pradesh. The school was founded in 1866 by the ulema.

Aligarh Muslim University public university in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh

Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) is an Indian public central university. It was originally established by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan as Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College in 1875. The College became Aligarh Muslim University in 1920. The main campus of AMU is located in the city of Aligarh. It has its three off-campus centres at Malappuram (Kerala), Murshidabad and Kishanganj (Bihar). The university is an Institute of National Importance provided under the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution at its commencement.

Lincoln College, Oxford college of the University of Oxford

Lincoln College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford, situated on Turl Street in central Oxford. Lincoln was founded in 1427 by Richard Fleming, then Bishop of Lincoln.

Upon his return to India, he served as education director for the Rampur state, and later joined the Baroda civil service. He became a writer and an orator of the first magnitude and a farsighted political leader, writing articles in major British and Indian newspapers like The Times , London, The Manchester Guardian and The Observer . [4] He launched the English weekly The Comrade in 1911 in Calcutta. It quickly gained circulation and influence. He moved to Delhi in 1912 and there he launched an Urdu-language daily newspaper Hamdard in 1913. [2] He married Amjadi Bano Begum (c. 1886–1947) in 1902. Begum was actively involved in the national and Khilafat movement. [5] [6]

<i>The Times</i> British daily compact newspaper owned by News UK

The Times is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register, adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers, since 1981 a subsidiary of News UK, itself wholly owned by News Corp. The Times and The Sunday Times do not share editorial staff, were founded independently, and have only had common ownership since 1967.

<i>The Observer</i> weekly British newspaper, published on Sundays

The Observer is a British newspaper published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its sister papers The Guardian and The Guardian Weekly, whose parent company Guardian Media Group Limited acquired it in 1993, it takes a social liberal or social democratic line on most issues. First published in 1791, it is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.

English language West Germanic language

English is a West Germanic language that was first spoken in early medieval England and eventually became a global lingua franca. It is named after the Angles, one of the Germanic tribes that migrated to the area of Great Britain that later took their name, as England. Both names derive from Anglia, a peninsula in the Baltic Sea. The language is closely related to Frisian and Low Saxon, and its vocabulary has been significantly influenced by other Germanic languages, particularly Norse, and to a greater extent by Latin and French.

Jouhar worked hard to expand the Aligarh Muslim University, then known as the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College, and was one of the co-founders of the Jamia Millia Islamia in 1920, which was later moved to Delhi. [7]

Khilafat movement and political activities

Jouhar had attended the founding meeting of the All India Muslim League in Dehli in 1906, and served as its president in 1918. He remained active in the League till 1928. Mohammad Ali Jouhar "had the unique distinction of having directed the affairs of the three most important political parties in the country—The Indian National Congress, the All India Muslim League and the Khilafat movement." [1]

He represented the Muslim delegation that travelled to England in 1919 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 and the presumed leader of all Islamic nations of that time. British government's rejection of their demands resulted in the formation of the Khilafat committee which directed Muslims all over India to protest and boycott the British government.

Now accorded the respectful title of Maulana, Ali formed, in 1921, a broad coalition with Muslim nationalists like Shaukat Ali, Maulana Azad, Hakim Ajmal Khan, Mukhtar Ahmed Ansari and Indian nationalist leader Mahatma Gandhi, who then enlisted the support of the Indian National Congress and many thousands of Hindus, who joined the Muslims in a demonstration of unity against the British government. Jouhar also wholeheartedly supported Gandhi's call for a national civil resistance movement, and inspired many hundreds of protests and strikes all over India. He was arrested by British authorities and imprisoned for two years for what was termed as a seditious speech at the meeting of the Khilafat Conference.

Alienation from Congress

Jouhar was, however, disillusioned by the failure of the Khilafat movement and Gandhi's suspension of Non-cooperation movement in 1922, owing to the Chauri Chaura incident. In this incident, on 4 February 1922, when a large group of protesters, participating in Gandhi's Non-cooperation movement clashed with police, who opened fire and killed three protesters. In retaliation, the demonstrators attacked and set fire to a police station, killing 23 policemen. The Indian National Congress suspended the non-cooperation movement on the national level as a direct result of this incident. [8]

He restarted his daily Hamdard, and left the Congress Party. He opposed the Nehru Report, which was a document proposing constitutional reforms and a dominion status of an independent nation within the British Empire, written by a committee of Hindu and Muslim members of the Congress Party headed by President Motilal Nehru. It was a major protest against the Simon Commission which had arrived in India to propose reforms but containing no local Indian nor making any effort to listen to the Indians' voices and aspirations. Mohammad Ali was put in jail. So All Parties Conference on Nehru report was represented by Shaukat Ali, Begum Mohammad Ali and 30 other members of the Central Khilafat Committee which included Abdul Majid Daryabadi, Azad Subhani, Maghfoor Ahmad Ajazi, Abul Mohasin Mohammad Sajjad and others. Mohammad Ali opposed the part of the Nehru Report's 'rejection' of separate electorates for Muslims, and supported[ citation needed ] the Fourteen Points of Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the Muslim League. He became a critic of Gandhi, breaking with fellow Muslim leaders like Maulana Azad, Hakim Ajmal Khan and Mukhtar Ahmed Ansari, who continued to support Gandhi and the Indian National Congress.

Jailed in Karachi

In 1921, British government established a court in Khaliqdina Hall in Karachi and punished him with two-and-a-half years' imprisonment in Karachi central jail. Besides this jail sentence, he served many and frequent jail sentences due to his anti-government activities. [3]

1930 Round Table Conference in London

Ultimately Mohammad Ali's frequent jail sentences, his diabetes and lack of proper nutrition while jailed, made him very sick. Despite his failing health, he wanted to attend the first Round Table Conference held in London in 1930. [3] Ali attended the 'Conference' in London (the chairman being Sir Agha Khan of the Muslim delegation) to show that only the Muslim League spoke for India's Muslims. Reportedly his words to the British government were, "that he would not return to India alive unless the country was set free. I would prefer to die in a foreign country so long as it is a free country, and if you do not give us freedom in India, you will have to give me a grave here." [2]

Death and legacy

He died of a stroke in London on 4 January 1931 and was buried in Jerusalem by the choice of his relatives, friends and admirers. The inscription written on his grave near the Dome of the Rock says: "Here lies al-Sayyid Muhammad Ali al-Hindi." [2]

Various places have been named after Mohammad Ali Jouhar. These include:

Awards in his name

Quotes

"I had long been convinced that here in this Country of hundreds of millions of human beings, intensely attached to religion, and yet infinitely split up into communities, sects and denominations, Providence had created for us the mission of solving a unique problem and working out a new synthesis, which was nothing low than a Federation of Faiths … For more than twenty years I have dreamed the dream of a federation, grander, nobler and infinitely more spiritual than the United States of America, and today when many a political Cassandra prophesies a return to the bad old days of Hindu-Muslim dissensions I still dream that old dream of 'United Faiths of India.'" —Mohammad Ali; from the Presidential Address, I.N.C. Session, 1923, Cocanada (now Kakinada).

See also

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References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 http://www.findpk.com/pof/maulana_mohamed_ali_jauhar.html, Profile of Mohammad Ali Jouhar on findpk.com website, Retrieved 4 Jan 2017
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 http://muslims-india.info/index.php/History/Know-our-heros-Maulana-Muhammad-Ali-Jauhar.html Archived 8 October 2007 at the Wayback Machine ., Retrieved 4 Jan 2017
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 'Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar- a man who chose the pen above the sword', Dawn newspaper, Published 4 Jan 2015, Retrieved 5 Jan 2017
  4. 1 2 http://storyofpakistan.com/maulana-muhammad-ali-jouhar?perid=p038, Profile of Mohammad Ali Jouhar on storyofpakistan.com website, Retrieved 4 Jan 2017
  5. ↑ Masooma, Syed (3 June 2013). "Amjadi Begum". dostpakistan.pk. Archived from the original on 28 June 2013. Retrieved 11 April 2017.
  6. ↑ "Begum Mohammed Ali Passes Away". The Indian Express. 29 March 1947. p. 5. Retrieved 11 April 2017.
  7. 1 2 https://www.google.co.in/maps/place/MMA+Rd,+New+Delhi,+Delhi/@28.5612254,77.2800068,17z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x390ce38d74dec5bd:0x3103cd044665df58, Campus of Jamia Millia Islamia, Delhi, shown on google map, Retrieved 4 Jan 2017
  8. ↑ http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/chauri-chaura-village-that-became-metaphor-for-gandhism-gets-entangled-in-criminal-violence/1/205175.html, India Today newspaper, Published 20 Oct 2003, Retrieved 5 Jan 2017
  9. ↑ TwoCircles.net
  10. ↑ "Maulana Mohammad Ali College - Banglapedia". en.banglapedia.org. Retrieved 2017-12-03.

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