Ali, Maulana Muhammad (1878–1931)

Muslim Indian political activist. Following a period of imprisonment 1915–19, with his brother, Maulana Shaukat Ali, he joined the Khilafat movement to protest against British policy towards the sultan of Turkey, who was also caliph of Islam. Muhammad became its leader and allied with the Indian National Congress, adopting Mahatma Gandhi's satyagraha, a strategy of nonviolent resistance to British rule. He was elected president of the Congress in 1923.

The Khilafat movement was undermined by the abolition of the caliphate by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, President of Turkey, but it continued with dwindling support and influence. During the late 1920s both brothers broke with Congress and afterwards concentrated on affairs concerning the Muslim community, although they remained highly influential political leaders.

With his brother, Muhammad was closely associated with the internal politics of Aligarh College prior to World War I. In 1911 he founded Comrade, an English-language weekly paper espousing pan-Islamic views. Shortly afterwards he moved the paper to Delhi and also bought an Urdu paper, Hamdard, which he used to set forth his political views.