He is the elder son of Raja Sulaiman, present Raja of Mahmudabad, by his wife Rani Vijay, a Hindu woman by birth. His father is the only son of Mohammad Amir Ahmad Khan, last Raja of Mahmudabad, long-time treasurer and major financier of the Muslim League in the years leading up to the partition of India. His mother is a sister of Ashok Mehta, a retired corporate executive and columnist who worked with Shell Oil for many years and now works for the Brookings Institution, India. Ali grew up in Mahmudabad, India. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree from Amherst College where he graduated with a double major in history and political science in the year 2006. Following this he studied advanced level Arabic from the University of Damascus. By 2010, he had earned an MPhil in Historical Studies from the University of Cambridge, and by 2014, he also secured his PhD in history from Cambridge. His dissertation was on "Rhetorics and Spaces of Belonging among North Indian Muslims, 1850- 1950" under supervision of Professor Sir Christopher Bayly and Professor Javed Majeed.
Education
Ali did his schooling up until the 5th grade from La Martiniere Lucknow, following which he went to England to study at King's College School till 1996. He graduated school from Winchester College in the year 2001 and began his university studies at Amherst College, where he played for the Varsity Squash Team. He graduated from Amherst, with a thesis on 'Iran and the evolution of Velayat-e-faqih Islamic Jurisprudence'. In college he also used to play the saxophone besides writing poetry. His PhD at Cambridge focused on the formation of Muslim political identity in North India between 1850–1950. In particular the thesis presented a history of the public space of poetry and a genealogy of the idea of homeland over these hundred years. Some of the other subjects relevant to his thesis are ideas of citizenship, patriotism, global Muslim identities and their relevance in the articulation and configuration of Muslim ideas of selfhood. Although he explores these primarily in the context of South Asia, most of these ideas are increasingly relevant in all parts of the Muslim world and a prominent part of debates around political reforms and public policy. Before his PhD, he secured his MPhil, also from Cambridge. He wrote a thesis on trans-national Shi‘a Muslim networks in the early 20th century between South Asia and the Middle East which got published in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society and became a part of the book: The Shi‘a in Modern South Asian. Prior to going to Cambridge, Ali studied Arabic at the University of Damascus in Syria. In addition to attending classes at the university, he wrote extensively about Syria for various print and online newspapers and magazines and also travelled widely not only in Syria but also in Lebanon, Egypt and Yemen. Since then he has undertaken research and travelled more extensively in the wider region and has spent substantial time in Iran and Iraq amongst other places. His travels have led to him writing for publications such as the National Geographic.
