Quaid: A Leader of Great Eminence

Shahid Mehmood

Islamabad: Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah was a leader of great eminence who changed the direction of history in the South Asian region by transforming the Muslims of South Asia from a minority community into a nation.

A leader with a long-term perspective of goals and strategies can convince others of the genuineness of his cause, and these qualities could be identified in Jinnah’s personal life, professional career as a brilliant lawyer, and political career.

Jinnah could be described as the creation of the political, socio-economic, and historical environment of the beginning of the 20th century. However, he did not stay trapped in the milieu of his time.

Thomas Carlyle, a British-Scottish historian and philosopher, was right to suggest that the great men shape history when he wrote that “the history of the world is but the biography of great men.”

Most Muslim intellectuals and political and religious leaders viewed the Muslims of South Asia as a socio-cultural and civilizational entity separate from other religious communities residing in British India.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah, one of the most fearless, determined, and strong-willed leaders, fought for Muslim rights with his willpower and comprehensive knowledge.

Jinnah accepted this argument of a separate community, but he moved this notion to a higher stage by converting them into a nation and spearheading the demand for a separate and independent homeland for them to turn the idea of a nation into a concrete and full political reality.

Jinnah was a charismatic leader who enjoyed the full confidence of the majority of Muslims in South Asia. They were convinced by the strength of his character and his bold advocacy of their cause that he had the ability to solve their socio-political and economic problems and secure their political future.

This view of Jinnah was shared by Muslims across all societal and regional divides. Charisma arises in a situation of acute societal crisis as well as the crisis of legitimacy of the institutions and processes in the last decade of British rule in India.

In such a transitional period, Jinnah was the source of inspiration and guidance for the Muslims of British India. Their devotion to him was so strong that he received an enthusiastic welcome wherever he went for political mobilisation.

Like Dr. Allama Muhammad Iqbal, Jinnah believed that Islam provided an ethical and moral basis for the state, and he firmly believed that modern notions of governance like the rule by constitution and law, democracy, basic human freedoms and individual rights, obligations of the state to its citizens, equal citizenship, and religious and cultural tolerance were incorporated into the teachings and principles of Islam.

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Islamic idiom and terminology began to appear in Jinnah’s speeches and statements from 1934 onwards, when he returned from England and devoted his attention to reorganising and strengthening the Muslim League for effective advocacy of Muslim demands and interests.

The presence of these Muslim leaders in the Congress Party partly contributed to the leadership misperception that they could neutralise the Muslim League with the help of the Muslims in Congress. Major Islamic parties of 1946–47 either opposed the Muslim League demand for a separate homeland or they stayed away from the Jinnah-led political struggle for the making of Pakistan.

The credit goes to Jinnah, whose determined leadership and persuasive advocacy of a separate homeland neutralised the opposition of a section of Muslim political and religious leaders and left no option for the Congress Party leadership but to accept the division of British India into India and Pakistan. The British were divided on this issue.

The feature report is released by APP

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