Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah was the great personality who proved the reality of Pakistan by his faith, effective leadership and hard determination. One can imagine his self-confidence that he used to say “Failure is a word unknown to me.”

Muhammad Ali Jinnah was born on 25 December 1876 in Karachi.Though there are few ambiguities about the correct birth date of Muhammad Ali Jinnah: in the register of his school in Karachi the day is recorded as October 26, 1875, but Muhammad Ali Jinnah always said that he had been born on Christmas Day – a Sunday – in 1876. Long before Muhammad Ali Jinnah was born, his parents migrated from Kathiawar to the fishing port of Karachi on the edge of Sindh. It was then a small town of around 50,000 people. His house was located at Newnham Road.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s father a hide merchant at Gujrat – a lean man named Poonja Jinnah. Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s mother was Mithibai – also called Shiree begum having 7 childrens. Muhammad Ali Jinnah was the eldest child; then Rehmat, Maryam, Ahmed Ali, Shireen, Fatima and Bande Ali; all of them remained obscure, except Fatima Jinnah who qualified as a dentist and who in later years became her brother’s close and devoted companion in the movement of Pakistan.
When Muhammad Ali Jinnah was six years old, he was sent to school in Karachi.Muhammad Ali Jinnah was ten, he went on a shop to Bombay, where he attended the Gokhal Das Tej Primary School. He studied there for one year. Then he returned to Karachi and at eleven he was sent to Sindh Madrassah-e-Islam on 4 July, 1887. At age fifteen, he went to the Christian Missionary School also in Karachi.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah was very hard-working and brilliant student at his studies. One of Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s close neighbour, Fatima Bai (old woman), once told the story about Muhammad Ali Jinnah that one night at his house she found all children sleeping except Muhammad Ali Jinnah. Muhammad Ali Jinnah had standed a sheet of cardboard against the oil lamp, to shield the eyes of the children from the light. Muhammad Ali Jinnah was lost in studying. Then i went to him and said, “You will make yourself ill from so much study.” he answered, “Bai, you know I cannot achieve anything in life unless i work hard.” It shows that Muhammad Ali Jinnah was very objective-oriented person from his childhood.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah has a schoolmate – Nanji Jafar – who once told about his school age that he and Muhammad Ali Jinnah played marbles in the street. (“DESCRIPTION”). Nanji Jafar also told once that one morning I was playing marbles in the street. Muhammad Ali Jinnah, then aged fouteen, came up and said,”DOn’t play marbles in the dust; it spoils your clothes and dirties your hands. We must stand up and play Cricket”

The boys in Newnham Road gave up playing marbles and allowed Muhammad Ali Jinnah to lead them from the dusty street to a bright field where he brought his bat and stumps for them to use. When he sailded for England at the age of sixteen, he gave Nanji Jafar his bat and said,”You will go on teaching the boys to play cricket while I am away.”

Once ,in boyhood, Muhammad Ali Jinnah visited to a law court with his father. There he saw an advocate in beautiful gown and bads, he said,”I want to be a barrister.”

At the time when Muhammad Ali Jinnah finished his schooling, there was an English friend of Poonja Jinnad – Fredrich Leigh Graft – working in an exchange broker at Bombay and Karachi. He suggested to Poonja Jinnah to send his son to London to learn the practice of the law.

(to be continued….)