Jinnah was a brilliant constitutional lawyer and a secular man. His favorite food was pork sausage and fried potatoes, according to his private secretary. He never once said his namaz or kept fast. His fore fathers were hindu jat, according to Jinnah himself.
Mr Akbar's book distorts truth or does not mention inconvenient truth.
So it is a very poor history. Also he appears to be bigotted.

He draws a parallel between pathans and Mr. Jinnah. That is absurd.
He extols the virtues of pathans and puts down other people.Pathans may be courageous but they are also known to be foolhardy. The entire subcontinent is full of pathan jokes that exceeds Polish jokes.
Jinnah was a cleam shaven modern man, there is no parralel between him and a illterate, bearded,relogious fanatic, marauding pathan.In fact the only attempt on Jinnah's life was made by a pathan.
Thia book is poor history, not worthy of a noble character like Jinnah.

I would like to respond to your comments with respect to muslims in India. It a shame that you have only met 1 Indian Muslim in Silicon Valley...but have you ever thought why?
Maybe because the 130 million + muslims in India have stayed in India, unlike the abundant Pakistani population that migrated West. I feel very bad for your Indian Muslim friend, who has suffered under the tyranny of Indian Hindu's. It strange, because my family, who are all Indian muslims, are very succesful and hold have very successful careers, my grandfather was the head architect of the state, my other grandfather was a civil engineer, head of his department, my aunt has a great job with a leading hotel, we have many relatives, who hold highly prominent and respectful positions in the government, army, and airforce. Its unfortunate that in 50+ years of Indian history the only 2 major communial riots heard in India, were of Babri Masjid and Godhra riots, but I must read 5 articles a year on sunni vs shia vs ahmadi vs ismaili vs christian violence in pakistan, the blessed muslim country.
AS far as your tales of hindu lords massacring muslims, have you ever heard of a king named aurangzeb?, please read on the history of his massacring and forced converting. Thank god my grandparents stayed in India, where every religion is legal, and every person is a first class citizen. Please do your research before making statements based on the 1 indian muslim you have ever met. I have lived in India and Canada and I am as free to practice my religion in India as I am in Canada.
Yours truly, Proud Muslim Indian, Jai Hind.

Reading this book character or Jinnah as well as Mr. Akbar Ahmed is exposed. This book is a desperate attempt of putting a positive twists on greed and cruelty of some of the Muslim leaders. Mr. Ahmed has no regards of other people or other cultures. He hails intolerance of leaders like Aurangzeb, Sheikh Ahmed Sirhindi, for practicing exclusive superiority of Muslims over non Muslims and condemns tolerant leaders like Akbar who was comparatively tolerant to non Muslims. He sees Muslim men marring non Muslim woman, in past, as pride of Islam and non Muslim man marring Muslim woman, in present times, as decline of Islam.

He claims Jinnah was not as cold and arrogant as history makes him to be because
he smiled when he met a British dignitary for the fist time
he became emotional when his wife died
"many of Jinnah's pictures in his biographies show him smiling"
If this was best Mr. Ahmed could do to put a humane face on Jinnah, some one should have told him it might not work. some of the statements in the book are deliberately truncated to hide the truth while some are out right lies.
eg. he writes " ..By losing half of the country in 1971" failing to mentioned what cause the 'losing', no mention what so ever why east Pakistan a Muslim majority chose to part away from west Pakistan creating Bangladesh.
Lies like ".. Gandhi's son became Muslim". As he did not care to mention the first name it could be any Gandhi. But if Mr. Ahmed was talking about Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi he should have done some basic research before making such ridiculous claims. Research like this.
http://www.gandhiserve.org/information/genealogical_table/page9/page9.html

If such is a scorn for non Muslims, of this western educated scholar, Mr. Ahmed, one must wonder what hate and intolerance must be brewing in the madrasa educated Muslims around the world.

Definatly a must read if you wish to understand mindset of some of the modern day 'muslim elites'. A waste of time if you need to learn something about Jinnah.

If ever I had a chance to meet a personality from the past my first and only choice would be a chance to have an evening tea with Mr. Jinnah. Many times I have been approached by my fellow Pakistani citizens claiming that creation of Pakistan was a historical blunder of immense proportions. Their claim that in a unified India; a larger muslim minority would be better able to project their interests. After all emotional and rational explanations to the defense of Pakistan I recluse with a potent exclamation from my dad "Had I been in India I would have been a peon in a government office serving tea". My residence is in the Silicon Valley; which inhabits many residents from the sub-continent; interestingly enough out of the 1000's of desis I get in contact with I have only met with one muslim from India. His despairing accounts of continual police harassment; the unsaid discrimination at official levels and the lack of job opportunities there; has created a deeper conviction within me to philosophy of Pakistan. I am indebted to Mr. Jinnah for the gift he gave us all in the form of a state where we can freely partake in the pleasures of life often denied to the muslims to the east. If it had not happened I would be reading Anandamath (a tale of Hindu lords massacring muslims).

Mr. Ahmed has accomplished a marvelous effort in the writings of Jinnah. He very clearly presents the general situation and tensions prevalent during the times; and the decisions that were made.

As a Pakistani, I was very interested when this book came out and was quite disappointed. Mr. Ahmed quotes mainly from limited and usually controversial sources. Many of these are more recent biographies and commentries rather than historical accounts from the period itself. When he does mention the exact nature of information, his interpretations strain credibility.

So my advice is not to bother and read something different, like Wolpert's several books on the subject.