Born :-December 25, 1876
Karachi, Bombay
EXPIRED:-September 11, 1948 (aged 71)
Karachi, Dominion of Pakistan
Jinnah was born Mohamed ali Jinnahbhai (Gujarati: મુહમ્મદ અલી જિન્નાભાઈ) in Wazir Mansion Karachi. Sindh had earlier been conquered by the British and was subsequently grouped with other conquered territories for administrative reasons to form the Bombay Presidency of British India. Although his earliest school records state that he was born on October 20, 1875, Sarojini Naidu, the author of Jinnah's first biography, gives the date as ”December 25, 1876”.
Jinnah was the first child born to Mithibai and Jinnahbhai Poonja. His father, Jinnahbhai (1857–1902), was a prosperous Gujarati merchant who hailed from the state of Gondal situated in the Kathiawar region province of Gujrat (present day India). He had moved to Karachi from Kathiawar, because of his business partnership with Grams Trading Company whose regional office was set up in Karachi, then a part of the Bombay presidency. He moved to Karachi some times before Jinnah's birth.His grandfather, Poonja Gokuldas Meghji,was a Hindu Bhatia Rajput from Paneli village in Gondal state in Kathiawar. Jinnah's ancestors were Hindu Rajputs; his grandfather had converted to Islam.Jinnah's family belonged to the Ismaili Khoja branch of Shi'a Islam, though Jinnah later converted to Twelver Khoja Shi'a Islam.
The first-born Jinnah was soon joined by six siblings; three brothers - Ahmad Ali, Bunde Ali, and Rahmat Ali - and three sisters - Maryam, Fatima and Shireen. Their mother language was Gujarati; in time they also came to speak Kutchi, Sindhi and English. The proper Muslim names of Mr. Jinnah and his siblings, unlike those of his father and grandfather, are the consequence of the family's immigration to the predominantly Muslim state of Sindh.
Jinnah was a restless student and studied at several schools: first at the Sindh-Madrasa-tul-Islam in Karachi; then briefly at the Gokal Das Tej Primary School in Bombay; and finally at the Christian Missionary Society High School in Karachi, where, at age sixteen, he passed the matriculation examination of the University of Bombay.
