The Indian Muslim movement, primarily known as The Khilafat movement, was a pan-Islamic political protest campaign led by British Indian Muslims Shaukat Ali, Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar, Hakim Ajmal Khan, and Abul Kalam Azad to restore the Ottoman caliph, considered to be the patriarch of Sunni Muslims, as an effective political authority.
The Khilafat issue crystallised anti-British feelings among Indian Muslims, which had grown since the British declared war on the Ottomans in 1914.
The Khilafat leaders, the majority of whom had been imprisoned for their pro-Turkish sympathies during the war, were already involved in the Indian nationalist movement.
They supported the Khilafat cause after their release in 1919 as a means of achieving pan-Indian Muslim political unity in the anti-British cause.
The significance of the Khilafat movement, however, lies in its impact on the Indian nationalist movement rather than its purported pan-Islamism.
The Khilafat movement’s leaders formed the first political alliance between western-educated Indian Muslims and ‘ulema over the Khilafat’s religious emblem (caliphate).
The ‘Ali Brothers – Muhammad ‘Ali (1878-1931) and Shaukat ‘Ali (1873-1938), Delhi newspaper editors; their spiritual guide Maulana Abdul Bari from Firangi Mahal, Lucknow; the Calcutta journalist and Islamic scholar Abu’l Kalam Azad; and Maulana Mahmud ul-Hasan, head of the madrasa in Deoband, northern India – were among those leaders.
These publicist-politicians and ‘ulema interpreted European assaults on the Caliph’s authority as an assault on Islam and thus as a challenge to Muslims’ religious freedom under British rules.
Final Answer:
Mohammed Ali and Shaukat Ali are the leaders of the Khilafat Movement, which was founded in India to support Turkey’s Caliph.