All-India Muslim League
All-India Muslim League founded at a separate political meeting in Dhaka
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Original prompt & settings (JSON) ↗December 27 to 29 were set aside for education. December 30 was reserved, explicitly, for politics.
A day reserved for politics
On 30 December 1906, after the twentieth All-India Muhammadan Educational Conference had ended, delegates reassembled at Shah Bagh in Dacca for a political meeting. The day had been reserved expressly for that purpose.
On Khwaja Salimullah's motion, Nawab Viqar-ul-Mulk was chosen to chair. Salimullah then moved the resolution creating an organisation called the All-India Muslim League; Hakim Ajmal Khan seconded it, and the meeting carried it unanimously.
A provisional committee was established, with Viqar-ul-Mulk and Mohsin-ul-Mulk as joint secretaries, to prepare the League's constitution within four months.
Three objects, none of them a separate state
The new body adopted three immediate objects: encouraging loyalty to the British government; protecting and advancing Indian Muslims' political rights and interests; and avoiding hostility toward other communities without sacrificing the first two.
Nothing in them called for Pakistan or an independent Muslim state. Separate electorates were embodied later, in the Indian Councils Act of 1909, and the Pakistan campaign came decades after that.
The League ended its founding day with a provisional committee and an unfinished constitution.
What the standard account gets wrong
Aga Khan III was not appointed honorary president at the founding. The League's reproduced proceedings record his formal election as president at Aligarh on 18 March 1908.
The League was not created during the educational conference's ordinary proceedings; the political meeting followed after it closed. The venue in those proceedings is Shah Bagh, which modern historical listings commonly identify as Ishrat Manzil — not the riverside Ahsan Manzil palace in Old Dhaka.
Salimullah unquestionably moved the founding resolution, but his earlier circulated scheme was called the Muslim All-India Confederacy, and accounts differ over who proposed the name the meeting adopted.
Sources
Researched 24 Aug 2026 5 sources not yet audited
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What the sources leave uncertain
- The date and Shah Bagh location are well supported, but modern accounts conflict over the building. The reproduced proceedings say Shah Bagh; some accounts identify the Shahbagh garden-house as Ishrat/Israt Manzil, while others incorrectly or loosely name Ahsan Manzil, a distinct Nawab palace in Old Dhaka.
- Attribution of the exact party name varies in later accounts. Salimullah unquestionably moved the founding resolution and had earlier circulated a scheme called the Muslim All-India Confederacy; some histories also credit Mian Muhammad Shafi in the naming discussion.