Scrollytelling Chapters
Our History
The Majlis represents a centuries-old tradition of intellectual exchange and collective transformation. Since its inception, the Majlis has made a profound impact on the global stage. The Majlis has fostered enteprise and investment, for global exchange beyond civilisational frameworks for over a century.
With 132 years of history and counting, our most notable accolades include. Select a portrait to view further information about each person’s involvement.
Gallery
With 132 years of history and counting, our most notable accolades include. Select a portrait to view further information about each person’s involvement.
Origins
The Majlis represents a centuries-old tradition of intellectual exchange and collective transformation. Since its inception, the Majlis has made a profound impact on the global stage. The Majlis has fostered enteprise and investment, for global exchange beyond civilisational frameworks for over a century.
An Intellectual Engine of Independence
Founded in Cambridge in 1894, then 1896 in Oxford, as policy making assemblies for Hindustani members of The Universities (modern day Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka) to interrogate the principles of imperialism, the first modern Majlises expanded from a minority political association into ‘an intellectual engine of independence’, and then ‘a political behemoth that in the decades to come, fostered generations of anti-imperial activists, becoming a cradle of youthful rebellion of the new age and heroic, freedom-loving defiance from Malaysia to Morocco’.
Generations of Leaders
The Majlis has nurtured generations of leaders: from Iqbal, who envisioned the intellectual foundations of Pakistan, to Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, Tunku Abdul Rahman, Malaysia’s independence leader to freedom, Eric Williams, Trinidad and Tobago’s ‘father of the nation’, Benazir Bhutto, the first woman to lead a Muslim nation, Keynes who revolutionised modern economics, Amartya Sen, who reshaped global discourse on poverty and development, Rabindranath Tagore, the first non-European Nobel laureate in Literature, and many more.
Debate to Revolution
These figures made the Majlis and were made by the majlis. While this legacy is a source of immense pride for our community, it serves more importantly as a lesson to us. Though the Majlis began for debate, the ideas that emerged within were not confined to rhetoric or partisan affiliation. As our first generations interrogated colonialism and exchanged perspectives on their world over chai, wisdom was gathered, refined, and transformed into the revolutionary thoughts of self-determination and independence. All their accumulated thought and planning that found resonance far beyond university created a hub for innovation and inaugurated a tradition and culture of intellectual revolution we share in today.
Archives Gallery
With 132 years of history and counting, our most notable accolades include. Select a portrait to view further information about each person’s involvement.
Intellectual Foundation
Allama Iqbal
Early 20th Century
Iqbal is part of the Majlis lineage as a figure who envisioned the intellectual foundations of Pakistan.