Quaid-i-Azam wanted Pakistan to be a progressive Muslim state, not a theocracy

Jinnah was born a Muslim in a Muslim family with Muslim parents. Therefore, he grew up as a child in the fold of Islam.
His father, Jinnahbhai Poonja, a follower of the Isna Ashri sect of Islam, was, by all evidence available, a good practising Muslim; he and his family celebrated the Muslim festivals, such as Eid. Jinnah's mother, Mithibai, was also a good Muslim who fasted during Ramzan and offered prayers and gave charity.
Jinnahbhai Poonja engaged a Muslim teacher who taught the Holy Quran and the teachings of Islam to his children. When Jinnah was admitted to the Sindh Madressah in Karachi, learning the Quran and offering prayers to Allah was included in its curriculum.
Its founders, notably the Effendi family of Sindh, had modelled it after the Aligarh school of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, the pioneer of Muslim revivalism in India in the 19th Century.
When Jinnah went to Bombay to stay for six months with his loving aunt and uncle, they admitted him to the Anjuman-e-Islam school there. Learning the holy Quran and the practices of Islam was a part of its cirriculum. Jinnah's marriage with Emibai, when he was 16, was performed according to Muslim rites.
Thus Jinnah's understanding of the Muslim faith commenced in his childhood years in Karachi.
When he was leaving Karachi for England in January 1893, his parents warned him against eating pork or ham. To save him from being seduced by pretty damsels in London, Jinnah's loving mother, Mithibai, got him married to 14-year-old Emibai a few weeks before he sailed to England. (She stayed in Karachi and died in 1894). As was the Muslim custom, he carried with him on board the ship a number of religious amulets which the Muslim relatives had given him, invoking God's blessing for his safety during the voyage.
Thus Jinnah's parents did all they could to ensure that their son should be aware of his Muslim identity.
During the three years of his legal education in England (1893-1896), Jinnah visited a Mosque in East London on the occasion of Eid and other Muslim festivals.
As a part of his legal studies at Lincoln's Inn, he had to learn various aspects of Muslim Jurisprudence and its canonical dogma.
For a lawyer to practise law in India, knowledge of Muslim personal law was essential and the curriculum at Lincoln's Inn for Barristers-in-the making included it. Jinnah had to study books on Islam and Islamic laws, particularly when it was his intention to return to India and practice law as a Barrister.
Jinnah spent a part of his leisure hours in the British Museum and he showed particular interest in the exhibits relating to the Muslim civilisation and the Indus Valley culture in India.
The first Muslim-majority country in the Arab World of which Jinnah had a day's glimpse was in early 1893 when his P & O liner docked at Port Said on the Suez Canal on way to England.
In the British Museum, Jinnah felt most interested in the archaeological exhibits from ancient and medieval Egypt.
Jinnah was prim and proper in his personal behaviour and did not fall for any English damsel. He politely refused a suggestion from his landlady's daughter in London that he could kiss her under the mistletoe on Christmas night in line with an English custom, saying that such intimacy with a female was contrary to his upbringing and morals.
There is no doubt that Jinnah avoided pork and ham and alcoholic drinks, preferring fruit juices.
When he returned to India in 1896 and began his legal practice in Bombay after doing a six-month stint as Presidency Magistrate in Bombay, he devoted a great deal of his time to making a thorough study of the laws in force in India, including Muslim canonical and personal laws.
He visited the Anjuman-e-Islamia in Bombay and donated money for scholarships to the needy and bright students.
He attended its functions where he met large numbers of local Muslims. He also kept in touch with the clerics of the Isna Ashri sect in Bombay and visited their religious centre.
When he made a brilliant speech in the Congress session in Calcutta on Dec 30, 1905, on the Muslim Wakful Aulad issue (Muslim Endowments) his arguments were a proof of the profundity of his knowledge of Muslim laws and the Holy Quran. Muslim scholars from many parts of India congratulated him on his advocacy of the Muslim cause. It is noteworthy that he won his first legislative election in India from the Muslim constituency of Bombay late in 1909.
The local Muslims would not have voted for him had he not been a practising Muslim who was fully acquainted with the Holy Quran and its teachings and the issues affecting Muslims in India.
As a member of the Calcutta-based Imperial Legislative Council, his success in navigating his private member's bill for a better deal for the Muslim Endowments in India and for reducing the Government levies on them won him India-wide acclaim from the Muslims, including such Muslim scholars, as Allama Shabbir Ahmed Usmani and Maulana Husain Ahmed Madni.
As a Muslim Legislator from Bombay, Jinnah attended religious meetings on the Prophet's birthday and reception for Muslim scholars in Bombay.
Jinnah joined the All India Muslim League as a member in London in 1913 when it amended its Constitution and included the attainment of self-rule for India in its aims and objects.
He made it clear, when he joined the ML, that he would continue his membership of the Congress which dated back to 1905.
The Muslims of Bombay were so pleased with Jinnah's work for their uplift that they again voted him from Bombay's Muslim constituency to the Imperial Legislative Council in 1916.
In Bombay, Jinnah observed the Muslim religious festivals and exchanged greetings with Muslims.
In 1918, Jinnah consented to marry Parsi-born Ruttie Petit after she turned 18 and embraced Islam in the presence of the chief cleric of the Isna Ashri Muslim sect in Bombay and the Muslim name of Maryam was given to her.
The next day, Jinnah married Ruttie in an Islamic wedding ceremony, with Muslim scholars and his Muslim friends attending it, including the senior Maharaja of Mahmudabad. In 1929, when Ruttie died, Jinnah had her burial done in a Muslim graveyard in Bombay according to Muslim rites supervised by a Muslim Imam (religious scholars).
He celebrated the Eid festival regularly and exchanged Eid greetings cards with fellow Muslims. He continued donating money to the Anjuman-e-Islamia and Muslim charities in Bombay and elsewhere.
Jinnah's chauffeur during his London years (1930-35), Bradbury, told me in London in 1984 that Jinnah went to a mosque in East London for Eid prayers and many Muslims visited him in his Hampstead home to greet him on Eid.
He asked his sister, Fatima, to teach her niece, Dina (Jinnah's only daughter) about Islam and the Quran. A proof of his immense faith in Islam was revealed when he told the judges of the Sindh High Court in a reception on March 25, 1948 in Karachi that he selected Lincoln's Inn in London for his legal education when he saw the name of the Prophet of Islam included in the list of great Lawgivers to mankind displayed in a huge fresco adorning the Great Hall of Lincoln's Inn.
From 1935 onwards when Jinnah returned to Bombay from England and became President of the All India Muslim League, amongst the many meetings to which he was regularly invited were Prophet's Birthday celebrations arranged by Muslim organisations and he attended many of them, extolling the virtues of the Prophet and the universal nature of Islamic teachings.
He read more books on Islamic jurisprudence for his legal work and for handling cases of Muslims in which knowledge of all sections of Muslim jurisprudence was required. According to Bradbury, pork and ham were not served in the Jinnah home in Hempstead.
As President of the All India Muslim League, Jinnah used to issue messages of greetings to Muslims on the occasion of Eidul Fitr and hundreds of Muslims called at his Malabar hill home for exchanging Eid greeting. Jinnah was an admirer of Allama Shabbir Ahmed Usmani's knowledge of Islam and sought his advice on Islamic matters.
In 1926, Jinnah was re-elected to the Central legislature from the Muslim constituency in Bombay which was a measure of the immense trust the Muslims of Bombay had in Jinnah.
This would not have been possible if he was a secularist. He was basically a liberal practitioner of Islam and the Muslim way of life and respected other religions and their followers also. He had many close non-Muslim friends.
In a broadcast from All India Radio, Bombay, on the day of the Muslim festival of Eidul Fitr on 13 November, 1939, Jinnah said,: "Man has, indeed, been called God's Caliph in the Quran and it imposes upon us a duty to follow the Quran and to behave towards others as God behaves towards his mankind...This duty is to love and forbear...
In the pursuit of truth and the cultivation of beliefs we should be guided by our rational interpretation of the Quran".
In a message to the Muslims on the occasion of Eidul Fitr in October 1941, Jinnah said: "The month of Ramzan is the month of Fasting, prayer and communion with God.. It enables you to feel that you are not a slave of food or appetite but that you should be its master. ..Islam lays emphasis on the social side of things.
Every day the rich and the poor, the great and the small, living in a locality, are brought together five times in a day in the mosque in terms of perfect equality of mankind and thereby the foundations of a healthy social relationship is laid and established through prayer.
Then at the end of Ramzan comes the new moon, the Crescent, as a signal for a mass gathering on the Eid Day, again in perfect equality of brotherhood which affects the entire Muslim World. ..."
Addressing the All India Muslim League conference in Karachi on Dec 26, 1943, Jinnah said: "What is it that keeps the Muslims united as one man and what is the bedrock and sheet-anchor of the community. It is Islam. It is the Great Book - the Quran - it is the sheet anchor of Muslim India. I am sure that as we go on and on, there will be more of Oneness-one God, one Book, one Prophet and one Nation".
Expounding the thesis that Islam is a Code of Life, Jinnah said in his message on the occasion of Eidul Fitr to the Muslims in September 1945: "..Every Mussalman knows that the injunctions of the Quran are not confined to religious and moral duties...the Quran is the general code of the Muslim.
A religious, social, civil, commercial, military, judicial criminal and penal code, it regulates everything, from the ceremonies of religion to those of daily life, from the salvation of the soul to the health of the body, from the rights of all to those of each individual, from morality to crime, from punishment here to that in the life to come. And our Prophet has enjoined on us that every Mussalman should possess a copy of the Quran and be his own priest.
Therefore, Islam is not merely confined to the spiritual tenets and doctrines or rituals or ceremonies. It is a complete code regulating the whole Muslim society, every department of life, collectively and individually."
In his Presidential Address at the All India Muslim League session in Delhi on April 24, 1943, Jinnah paid these tributes to the Prophet of Islam: "The Prophet was a great Teacher.
He was a great Law-Giver. He was a great statesman and he was a great sovereign who ruled ...Islam is not only a set of rituals, traditions and spiritual doctrines. Islam is also a code for every Muslim which regulates his life and his conduct even in politics and economics and the like. It is based on the highest principles of honour, integrity, fairplay and justice for all. One God and the equality of mankind is one of the fundamental principles of Islam. In Islam there is no difference between man and man. The qualities of equality, liberty and fraternity are the fundamental Principles of Islam...
The Prophet was the greatest man the world had ever seen. Thirteen hundred years ago he laid the foundations of Democracy."
Jinnah's vision of the shape of the future constitution of Pakistan, to be framed by the first Constituent Assembly of Pakistan, was underlined when he said in a broadcast message for the people of the USA in February 1948 that he expected the new Constitution to be of a democratic type, embodying the essential principles of Islam. Islam, he said, had taught Muslims equality of man, justice and fairplay to everybody.
In December 1946, when Jinnah went with Viceroy Wavell, Liaquat, Nehru and Baldev Singh to London for talks with Prime Minister Clement Attlee on constitutional issues, he especially went to a Mosque in East London for Friday prayers and greeted the Muslims of London with the assurance that Pakistan will come into existence sooner than most people expected. It did eight months later, Aug. 14, 1947.
Jinnah's Eidul Fitr message on August 18, 1947 - four days after the birth of Pakistan -was addressed not only to the Muslims of Pakistan but to the entire Muslim World. Jinnah said: "I wish on this auspicious day a very Happy Eid to all Muslims wherever they may be throughout the World - an Eid that will usher in, I hope, a new era of prosperity that will mark the onward march of the renaissance of Islamic culture and ideals...
No doubt we have achieved Pakistan but that is only yet the beginning; great responsibilities have come to us and equally great should be our determination and endeavour to discharge them and the fulfillment thereof will demand of us efforts and sacrifices in the cause, no less for constructing and building of our nation than what was required for the achievement of the cherished goal.
The time for real solid work has arrived and I have no doubt in my mind that the Muslim genius will put its shoulder to the wheel and conquer all obstacles in our way on the road which may appear uphill."
Dressed in a cream-coloured Sherwani and white Pyjamas and wearing a grey Karakuli Jinnah cap, Jinnah drove on Eid Day on August 18, 1947 without any visible security squads and with the least of fanfare, to the spacious Eidgah Maidan on Bunder Road (now known as M.A. Jinnah Road) in the heart of Karachi, Pakistan's new capital city, and joined the huge gathering of Muslims for the congregational Eid prayers.
The crowd of Muslims was so great that they spilled over from the Eidgah ground to the adjacent road where prayer rugs were quickly spread to accommodate the praying Muslims.
When the Eid prayer was over, Jinnah mixed freely with his Muslim brethren, exchanging Eid greetings and the ritual embraces with many Muslims. The Governor-General's House was 'open house' for Eid with Muslim callers thronging in multitudes to say "Eid Mubark" to the Great Leader who had led them to the haven of Pakistan.
The Eid festivities in Pakistan were subdued because of the savage killing of Muslims in East Punjab and Delhi by fanatical Sikh and Hindu jingoes.
How every strong was Jinnah's Muslim character is borne out by his refusal to permit his only daughter, Dina, to marry a Parsi young man in Bombay, Neville Wadia, unless he became a Muslim.
When he refused to do so and Dina married her, defying her father's will, he froze his fatherly relations with the daughter he had adored all his life as the apple of his eye. Dina's argument that after all Daddy had married her Parsi mother cut no ice with Jinnah when he said to her: "Yes, I did but only after Ruttie had embraced Islam and became a Muslim".
Jinnah loved Dina since she was born in London on August 14/15 in 1919. After Ruttie's death in Bombay in 1929, Jinnah gave all his fatherly love to Dina, especially when they were in London between 1930 and 1935. Jinnah's chauffeur, Bradbury, told me in 1984 that any wish of Dina was granted by her father in their London home and Jinnah attended with her almost every function in her school to which parents were invited.
Basically a frugal person who did not waste his wealth, Jinnah paid Dina's school fees always on time and was generous with the pocket money for her. Dina could buy any number of clothes that she liked but, by nature, she was also careful in spending her pocket money.
Dina Wadia and Jinnah did telephone each other in Bombay but Jinnah avoided calling her to his home. Jinnah phoned her to give her the news from New Delhi on June 2, 1947 that the British had conceded his Pakistan demand.
On September 11, 1948, Dina was informed in Bombay by Pakistan's Prime Minister, Liaquat Ali Khan about Jinnah's death and she flew in a special plane sent by the Pakistan Government, to Karachi on September 12 to attend her father's funeral. Wearing a black Sari, Dina cried like a child when she saw her father's body being lowered into the grave before a mammoth crowd of mourners. She and aunty Fatima burst into tears and wept at Jinnah's funeral.
Two days later, Dina went back to her home in Bombay. Her two children never met Jinnah. Dina often felt upset when Jinnah called her Mrs. Wadia instead of Dina, the name he and Ruttie had given her when she was born to them in London in 1919.
In the 1980's Dina and Neville split and separated. Neville went to live in Switzerland, leaving his textile empire in Bombay to his son, Nusli Wadia, who lives there. Dina lives in New York.
On September 12, 1948 (the day after his death in Karachi), for Jinnah's Last Journey - to his Creator and to the Heavens - all the rituals of Islam were followed. His body was washed and bathed in rose water in the Governor-General's House and placed in a white shroud and the traditional smell of camphor was in the air.
The reciters of the Quran, who memories the holy Book, ritually chanted holy verses, invoking Allah's blessing and mercy for the departed soul. The funeral procession was joined by half a million sorrowing Muslims.
In a vast open space, his funeral prayers were led by one of the great living scholars of Islam, Allama Shabbir Ahmed Usmani, before an enormous concourse of his mourners. With prayers to the Almighty Allah for the beneficence of his soul, Jinnah was laid to eternal rest in a grave in total conformity with the Islamic commandments and rituals at the site where now stands the Quaid-i-Azam's magnificent mausoleum in Karachi.
Jinnah was born a Muslim, he lived as a good Muslim and he died in the eternal fold of Islam, having created from a vision what in his time was the biggest Muslim State in the world - Pakistan.
Yet there are doubting Thomases and detractors who drum the lie that Jinnah had turned a secularist in his oration of August 11, 1947 in the first Constituent Assembly of Pakistan in Karachi when he said: "You are free, you are free to go to your temples, you are free to go to your mosques or to any other place of worship in his state of Pakistan. You may belong to any religion or caste or creed - that has nothing to do with the business of the State...
We are starting with this fundamental principle that we are all citizens and equal citizens of One State". In these stirring words Jinnah only underlined the traditional impartiality and justice required to be practised in an Islamic State for all its citizens.
The Quaid-i-Azam's mausoleum in Karachi - the most impressive landmark in the city - symbolises the best elements in Muslim architecture. Jinnah was born in Karachi, he loved the city of his birth and he rests in eternal peace in Karachi. Very aptly, Jinnah's creation, Pakistan is named the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
On March 23, 1947 - the Golden Jubilee of Pakistan - 54 heads of State or Governments from the World of Islam gathered in Islamabad, Pakistan's capital city, and greeted Pakistan on the 50th anniversary of its birth and lauded the achievement of the Great Muslim Leader, Jinnah, who made Pakistan in 1947.
A close study of Jinnah's life and his public speeches shows that he was a good, practising Muslim. By and large, he was a liberal and progressive Muslim who had a thorough knowledge of Islam and Islamic jurisprudence. He had studied Muslim history, especially of Early Islam and Muslim rule in India. Jinnah's Islamic views had not tinge of the extremist or the bigot.
Jinnah's Islamic belief was based on the concept of peaceful co-existence between all the religions and their followers. Sectarian considerations had no place in his practice of Islam or his public and private utterances.
He avoided raising or commenting on sectarian issues; the solidarity of Muslims, irrespective of their sect, was the focus of his endeavours.
Politically, Jinnah respected Muslim scholars and clerics but he was opposed to theocracy (or Mullah-rule). His vision of Pakistan was of a liberal, democratic and progressive Islamic State in which Muslims and non-Muslims would live in concord and harmony as equal citizens of the State.
In his message to the Frontier (NWFP) Students' Federation in Peshawar on June 18, 1945, Jinnah said: "Pakistan not only means freedom and independence but the Muslim ideology which has to be preserved and which has come to us a precious gift and treasure and which we hope others will share with us". On 8 November, 1945 Jinnah told a correspondent of the Associated Press of America News Agency that the Hindu minority in Pakistan "can rest assured that their rights will be protected. No civilised Government can be run successfully without giving minorities a complete sense of security and confidence.
They must be made to feel that they have a hand in the Government and for this, they must have adequate representation in it. Pakistan will give this".
In a broadcast to the people of Australia on 19 February, 1948, Jinnah said: "The great majority of us as are Muslims. We follow the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad (may peace be upon him). We are members of the Brotherhood of Islam in which all are equal in right, dignity and self-respect.
Consequently, we have a special and a very deep sense of unity. But make no mistake. Pakistan is not a theocracy or anything like it. Islam demands from us the tolerance of other creeds and we welcome, in closest association with us, all those who, of whatever creed, are themselves willing and ready to play their part as true and loyal citizens of Pakistan".
Jinnah reminded Pakistan's Constituent Assembly in August 1947 of the "utmost tolerance" the Prophet of Islam had shown to the Jews and Christians in Arabia and his regard and respect for their Faith and beliefs.
Quaid-i-Azam Jinnah said: "...Our Salvation lies in following the Golden Rules of conduct set for us by our Great Lawgiver, the Prophet of Islam; let us lay the foundations of our democracy on the basis of truly Islamic ideals and Principles. Our Almighty has taught us that our decisions in the affairs of the State shall be guided by discussions and consultations..."
Speech at Sibi Darbar, February 14, 1948