Jinnah family

Updated on Jan 30, 2024

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Ethnicity Gujarati - Indian		Distinctions Political prominence

Current region New York City, US (Dina Wadia) Place of origin Kathiawar, Gujarat, India Members Muhammad Ali Jinnah Fatima Jinnah Emibai Jinnah Maryam Jinnah Dina Wadia Connected families Wadia family Petit family

The Jinnah family (Urdu: خاندان جناح‎; Gujarati: જિન્નાહ કૌટુંબિક) was a political family of Pakistan. Jinnahs have played an important role in the Pakistan Movement for creation of Pakistan, a separate country for Muslims of India. The family held the leadership of All-India Muslim League, and it's successor, Muslim League, until it dissolved in 1958 by martial law. Originally from a Gujarati Hindu background, the family converted to Shia Islam in the 19th century and moved to Karachi from Kathiawar, Gujarat.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah (also referred to as only Jinnah) and Fatima Jinnah, have been important figures in the history of Pakistan. Jinnah was the founder and the first Governor General of Pakistan, while, Fatima played an important role in the struggle for Pakistan Movement and was the founding mother of Pakistan. Jinnah and Fatima has remained an extremely important and well-respected figures in Pakistan, even after their deaths.

The family's only living member is Jinnah's daughter, Dina Wadia (née Jinnah) who married Neville Wadia, an Indian Parsi from Mumbai. Since 2003 Dina lives alone with staff in the New York City, United States, whereas Wadia family lives in Mumbai, India.

First generation

Premjibhai "Meghji" Thakkar, the patriarch of the family is the paternal grandfather of Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Fatima Jinnah. He was a Hindu Lohana from Paneli village in Gondal State in Kathiawar, Gujarat. He fell in love with a Muslim girl and converted to Islam in order to marry her.

Second generation

Poonjabhai "Jinno" (also referred to as Jina Poonja), a Lohana (1857–1902), was married to Mithhibai.

Poonjabhai Thakkar was a prosperous Gujarati merchant. He moved to Karachi from Kathiawar, because of his business partnership with Grams Trading Company whose regional office was set up in Karachi. He moved to Karachi before Muhammad Ali Jinnah's birth. He and his wife had 7 children:

Muhammad Ali Jinnah
Ahmed Ali Jinnah
Bunde Ali Jinnah
Rahmat Bai Jinnah
Shireen Bai Jinnah
Fatima Jinnah
Maryam Bai Jinnah

Third generation

Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876–1948)

Jinnah is the founder of Pakistan and was the country's first Governor-General. His first marriage in 1892 was the result of his mother urging him to marry his cousin Emibai Jinnah before he left for England to pursue higher studies. However, Emibai died a few months later. His second marriage took place in 1918 to Rattanbai Petit (granddaughter of Dinshaw Maneckji Petit and Ratanji Dadabhoy Tata), a Parsi who was 24 years his junior. Rattanbai converted to Islam when she married Jinnah and took on the name Maryam Jinnah, but continued to be known as Rattanbai. In 1919, she gave birth to their only daughter, Dina Jinnah.

Ahmed Ali Jinnah

Bunde Ali Jinnah

Rahmat Bai Jinnah

Shireen Jinnah

Fatima Jinnah (1893–1967)

Fatima Jinnah was a dental surgeon, biographer, stateswoman, and one of the leading Founding mothers of modern-state of Pakistan. She also played a pivotal role in civil rights and introduced the women's rights movement in the Pakistan Movement. After her brother's death she continued to play a pivotal role in Pakistani politics and in 1965 returned to active politics by running against Ayub Khan in the 1965 elections.

Maryam Bai Jinnah

Fourth generation

Dina Wadia (b. 1919)

Dina was born to Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Maryam Jinnah (nee Rattanbai Petit) in London shortly after midnight on the morning of August 15, 1919. As Stanley Wolpert's Jinnah of Pakistan records: "Oddly enough, precisely twenty-eight years to the day and hour before the birth of Jinnah's other offspring, Pakistan."

She had a rift with her father when she expressed her desire to marry a Parsi-born Indian, Neville Wadia. According to M C Chagla in "Roses in December", Jinnah, a Muslim, disowned his daughter after trying to dissuade her from marrying Neville. Dina Wadia is the only direct living link to Jinnah and the nation of Pakistan claiming her father as its own father of the nation is assumed to have some kind of kinship with her according to Akbar S. Ahmed. His descendants through her are part of the Wadia family and reside in India as she married and stayed in India after the creation of Pakistan in 1947. Dina Wadia lives alone with staff in the New York City, United States.

Estates

Wazir Mansion, Jinnah's birthplace in Karachi

South Court, Muhammad Ali Jinnah's former residence in Mumbai, India, currently owned by the government of India.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah House, Jinnah's former House at 10 Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Road, New Delhi, currently the Dutch Embassy in India.

Quaid-e-Azam House, Muhammad Ali Jinnah's House in Karachi

References

Jinnah family Wikipedia

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