Military personnel march at the mausoleum of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, during a ceremony to mark the Defense Day in Karachi. (This featured image was added online in 2024, and did not appear in the original print publication.)IMAGO / Xinhua
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Muhammadali Jeenabhai Poonja
It is generally assumed that Jinnah became more Islamic over the years that he spent in politics. This may not be entirely true.
Some people think that jinnah means "wing" in Arabic, but this is incorrect: "wing" in Arabic is janah. The misunderstanding probably comes from the fact that jinnah written in Urdu without the vowels indeed has the same spelling as janah.
The Quaid-e-Azam´s family history has been the subject of much ignorance and – in the alternative – misinterpretation. To set the record straight, if the Quaid had kept all his names as he inherited them, he would have been Muhammadali Jeenabhai Poonja.