This served as a stepping stone in Muhammad Ali’s career. He made considerable administrative reforms in the department which was in his charge and won a distinguished place in the administration of the State. But he could not reconcile himself to the limited sphere of activities in a small State. He wanted a wider circle where he might come face to face bigger issues. His writings in the Times of India made him unpopular in official circles. A circular asking State officials to refrain from expressing opinions which may create revolutionary tendencies among the people was issued. Muhammad Ali was already dissatisfied with things in the State and this circular enabled him to make up his mind about himself quickly. He left the State service and entered into politics.

The development of political ideas in Muhammad Ali dates back to his sojourn at the M.A.O. College, Aligarh, because of the increasing influence of the English staff in the college. The English staff went much further, and started dictating Politics for which they found official support. The dawn of the Twentieth Century found the College Administration and the English staff at loggerheads. Estrangement between the two became increasingly evident. The English staff did not also pull on well with the students and the Indian staff.

Muhammad Ali, even long after leaving College, was still in close touch with the student community at Aligarh. His letters to the Times of India reflected the growing estrangement between the English staff and the students which resulted in student’s unrest in 1907. This perturbed the British bureaucracy for the first time. The government of Sir John Hewett indirectly instructed the Nawab that Muhammad Ali would not be his Assistant Secretary and Shaukat Ali was transferred from Aligarh to Banaras by way of punishment for having a hand in the student unrest.

By that time, dissatisfaction among the Muslims had arisen because of Hindus indifference. Muhammad Ali in a letter, addressed to Gokhale, had already drew his attention to it. He felt that Muslim view-point had not been properly understood and it had ultimately resulted in the deteriorating relations between the two major communities. Forced by the need to have an English paper to represent Muslim grievances and keeping in view the way politics developed in India, Muhammad Ali took to journalism as a life long career. Muhammad Ali earnestly wanted to devote himself to the service of his community and country. When once asked as to why he had adopted journalism as a profession, he replied that the circumstances of his community and the country had impelled him to have recourse to journalism. He said: ‘We are partisans of none, comrades of all. We deeply feel the many dangers of increasing controversy between races and races, creeds and creeds, and earnestly desire an understanding between the contending elements of the body-politic of India”.

The strained relations that existed between the ruler and the ruled were also to be patched up. He was of the view that ‘the line of demarcation between the two should be obliterated and the smooth relation should come out.’ More than anyone else Muhammad Ali knew the growing estrangement between the Hindus and the Musalmans. His paper, “Comrade” intended to work out a real Hindu-Muslim entente, for a united nationality.

Like Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Muhammad Ali too did not think of meddling in politics of other Muslim countries of the world. To quote his own words: ‘When I first thought of making this change in my career I did not expect that any but a small fraction of my attention and energies would be attracted by Muslim politics outside the confines of my own country.’ Circumstances, however, impelled him to devote himself to the question of the sovereignty of some of the Muslim countries. In 1911-12, the Tripoli and the Balkan issues made him restless when Italy and other European powers were determined to overthrow the Turkish and Arab domination in the spirit of the crusade. The eclipse of Muslim rule in Tripoli and the Balkans had greatly affected him and his feeling during the disastrous days of the Balkan War had so over-powered him that he even ‘contemplated suicide.’ The Kanpur mosque crisis further aggravated the fears of the Muslim community that they were being treated as a humiliated and weak community.

In an article: ‘The Communal Patriot’: Muhammad Ali argued that Hindus and Muslims should recognise clearly that there are differences between them which need not interfere with the development of mutual respect. “None, however need despair”, he wrote, “as the influences of education, and leveling, liberalizing tendencies of the times are bound to succeed in creating political individuality out of the diversity of creed and race”.

For his views and involvement in the Pan-Islamic upsurge, Muhammad Ali was sent to jail, first on 15 May 1915, later in November 1922. During his famous Karachi trial in October 1922, Muhammad Ali said, “The trail is not Muhammad Ali and six others versus the Crown, but God versus man.”

During the Khilafat Movement, Muhammad Ali was a close ally of M.K. Gandhi and a staunch supporter of the Indian National Congress. But when Hindu-Muslim relations deteriorated in the aftermath of the Khilafat and non co-operation movement, Muhammad Ali became disillusioned with the Congress as well as with Gandhi.

The gulf that separated Gandhi and Muhammad Ali was confirmed by Muhammad Ali’s open condemnation in April 1930 of the civil disobedience movement launched by Gandhi. Muhammad Ali urged Muslims not to join it because its goal was the establishment of Hindu raj.

He was of the view that one’s belief in one’s religion should not obstruct the development of harmonious relations between different communities following different faith. In his own words: Where God commands I am a Muslim first, Muslim second and a Muslim last and nothing but a Muslim. My first duty is to my Maker and not to His Majesty the king. But where India’s freedom is concerned, where the welfare of India is concerned, I am an Indian first, an Indian second, and Indian last and nothing but an Indian. His prophetic words came true. He did not return to a slave country and was laid to eternal rest in Jerusalem in the court-yard of Masjid-ul-Aqsa, the second holiest mosque of Islam. Iqbal paid him the highest tribute: (The holy land took him in its yearning embrace. He went to Heaven by the path the Prophet had taken) Muhammad Ali’s death left Shaukat Ali forlorn figure but he continued to fight for freedom of the country from different platform. He too passed away in 1938 and was buried in Lal Qila grounds near the Jama Masjid Delhi. It is unfortunate that his patriotic services to the country have not been duly recognized.