Maulana Muhammad Ali Jauhar was born in 1878 in Rampur in India. Upon his return to India, he served as education director for the Rampur state, and later joined the Baroda civil service.

He became a brilliant writer and author, and wrote for major English and Indian newspapers, in both English and Urdu. He himself launched the Urdu weekly Hamdard and English Comrade in 1911.

He moved to Delhi in 1913. Mohammad Ali worked hard to expand the AMU, then known as the Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College, and was one of the co-founders of the Jamia Millia Islamia in 1920, which was later moved to Delhi. Mohammed Ali had attended the founding meeting of the All India Muslim League in Dhaka in 1906, and served as its president in 1918. He remained active in the League till 1928.

Ali represented the Muslim delegation that travelled to England in 1919. British rejection of their demands resulted in the formation of the Khilafat committee.

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. He was elected as President of Indian National Congress in 1923. He re-started his weekly Hamdard, and left the Congress Party.

Mohammad Ali opposed the Nehru Report's rejection of separate electorates for Muslims, and supported the Fourteen Points of Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the League.

Ali attended the Round Table Conference to show that only the Muslim League spoke for India's Muslims. He died soon after the conference in London, on January 4, 1931 and was buried in Jerusalem.