There is something different about hearing history from someone who has inherited it. At Mian Yusuf Salahuddin’s home, the past does not sit quietly in an archive; rather, it hangs on the walls.

He walks through a gallery of photographs, stopping at one frame and then another, identifying the faces almost effortlessly: Quaid-e-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Allama Iqbal, Muslim League leaders, and members of his own family. But the photographs are only the beginning. With every frame comes a memory, and with every memory, another story about the people and ideas that shaped Pakistan.

Yusuf Salahuddin, popularly known as Yusuf Sally, comes from a family whose history is deeply intertwined with that story. His family moved from Kashmir to Punjab, with his paternal side becoming closely associated with Lahore, while his maternal family is that of Allama Iqbal.

For Yusuf, then, the Pakistan Movement was never simply something he encountered in a textbook. It was part of the family conversation.

And that conversation begins with community.

Mian Karim Baksh

His grandfather, Mian Karim Bakhsh, belonged to a generation of Muslim leaders who believed that building a community also meant building institutions. Yusuf recalls him as deeply “community-minded.” He says his grandfather donated a substantial portion of his property during his lifetime, including land and other resources, to the Badshahi Mosque. At a time when the mosque lacked a proper perimeter wall and its minarets were damaged, he helped restore them.

His commitment extended beyond Lahore. When famine struck Kashmir, Yusuf recalls, thousands of Kashmiris came to Lahore in search of food. His grandfather housed them on family property in what was then Minto Park, providing food, shelter and tents. Many remained in Punjab, something Yusuf connects to the strong Kashmiri communities that developed in Lahore and Gujranwala.

The British government later offered Mian Karim Bakhsh the title of Nawab and a substantial tract of land in Sheikhupura. He refused both. His reason, as Yusuf remembers it, was simple: he had not done these things for a title or a reward. He believed he would receive his reward from God.

That same spirit found an institutional expression in Anjuman-i-Himayat-i-Islam.

Anjuman-i-Himayat-i-Islam.

Yusuf traces the Anjuman to a gathering of Muslim luminaries who came together to build an organization for the community. Maulana Kasuri, the grandfather of Mahmood Ali Kasuri, was invited to Lahore and wrote the Anjuman's constitution and syllabus. The organization went on to establish Islamia College Civil Lines and Islamia College Railway Road.

For Yusuf, these institutions were significant not simply because they educated young Muslims, but because of what those young people would later do. He says that many of the youth who stood with Jinnah and fought for Pakistan came from these institutions.

And it was through this platform, he recalls, that Jinnah first came to address the Muslims of Punjab and Lahore.

At Barkat Hall, Yusuf says, Jinnah spoke to the people of Punjab, giving them an opportunity to see him, hear him and understand his political thinking. It was, in Yusuf's telling, an important moment in Jinnah's relationship with the Muslims of Punjab.

The Anjuman itself also became a gathering place for Muslim intellectual life. Every year, Yusuf says, Muslim minds from across India would come together. Figures such as Altaf Hussain Hali and others associated with the intellectual currents of the Aligarh movement were part of this wider world. The Mufti of Palestine was among those who attended on one occasion.

One photograph in Yusuf's home captures that generation for him: a collection of men he believes helped change the fate of India's Muslims. Among them was Iqbal.

Allama Iqbal was his maternal grandfather. Yusuf describes his maternal uncle Javed Iqbal's book, "Zinda Rood" or "The Living Stream", as perhaps the most complete account of Iqbal's life, from birth to death.

It is through that account that Yusuf recalls one of the most revealing stories about Iqbal and Jinnah.

Iqbal and Jinnah

Jinnah had come to visit the ailing Iqbal. Iqbal told his young son Javed to dress properly, bring his autograph book, and come downstairs because there was a gentleman he should meet.

Javed, around twelve at the time, approached Jinnah and asked for his autograph. As Jinnah signed the book, he asked the boy whether he wrote poetry. Javed said no. Jinnah then asked him what he wanted to become when he grew up.

Javed was so awed by Jinnah's personality that he became numb and could not answer. Instead, he looked towards his father.

Iqbal's response, as Yusuf remembers it from Javed's account, was striking: Javed was looking towards Jinnah for him to tell the boy what he should become.

For Yusuf, that small exchange says a great deal about the relationship between the two men.

He rejects the idea that Iqbal and Jinnah were somehow fundamentally on opposing sides. There were differences, and Yusuf says Jinnah was initially not convinced that the creation of Pakistan was the way forward. But, in his telling, Iqbal eventually convinced him that there was no other way.

Soldier of Jinnah

Yusuf also recalls the correspondence between the two men. He says Iqbal eventually destroyed the letters exchanged between them because he feared that, after Pakistan was created, they could be misunderstood as evidence that Jinnah had not supported the idea of Pakistan.

Another story brings out Iqbal's personality in a different way.

When Jawaharlal Nehru visited the ailing Iqbal, Yusuf recalls that Nehru sat on the floor beside his bed despite chairs being available. Nehru had great respect for Iqbal. At one point, according to Yusuf's recollection, Nehru referred to Iqbal as the true leader of the Muslims.

Iqbal's response was curt. He described himself as a soldier of Jinnah.

For Yusuf, these stories are not simply about the past. They demonstrate the political vision and personal conviction of a man whose influence, he believes, extends far beyond Pakistan.

Grandchildren of the founding fathers

Decades after the Pakistan Movement, that history walked into Yusuf's own home.

Jinnah's daughter, Dina Wadia, came to visit him.

Yusuf remembers the occasion as an “amazing, amazing day.” He had hosted prime ministers, heads of state and other prominent figures, but Dina's visit was different.

He took her to dinner at Cuckoo's Café, following a recommendation from the then president general Musharraf.

There was another connection between the families. Dina's grandson and Yusuf's son had attended Tufts University together. The two families had known one another through their children, and eventually the two grandsons, one of Jinnah and the other of Iqbal sat together and talked.

And there was something else about the encounter that stayed with him: the reaction of ordinary Pakistanis to Jinnah's daughter.

Yusuf remembers seeing people form a line to greet Dina, many of whom had never met Jinnah themselves. They had only heard him, yet their respect for his daughter reflected the affection they still carried for him.

It moved Yusuf enough to write an article for Dawn, despite rarely writing articles at all.

That encounter also had a direct effect on the direction of his own life.

By then, Yusuf had already gone through politics. He began in local government, became a member of the Shura, was elected to the provincial parliament and served as a minister in the Punjab government. He also chaired the Punjab Crime Control Committee.

Eventually, he left politics.

The stories continue

Yusuf inherited these stories from his parents and grandparents. He later encountered some of the people connected to those stories himself. And after leaving politics, he found his own way of carrying the conversation forward through Lahore, music, culture, poetry and storytelling.

That may be what makes his walk through the photographs so compelling.

He is not simply showing us pictures of the Pakistan Movement.

He is showing us how history survives in a carpet hanging in a dining room, in a childhood story about Jinnah, in a mother's fragmentary memory of her father Iqbal, in the meeting of two grandsons, and in the continuing effort to tell younger generations why these people mattered.

The frames remain fixed. The stories do not. And for Yusuf Salahuddin, the memories of the Pakistan Movement are still very much alive.