[1] He was an admirer of Mahatma Gandhi's passive resistance movement, and attended rallies where ANC leader Albert Luthuli spoke.

[1][6] He would later say that the Sharpeville massacre of 1960, where 69 protestors were shot dead by the Transvaal police, changed his mind about peaceful means of protest and passive resistance, leading him to join the armed wing of the ANC.

[4][5] He was tried in the Pietermaritzburg Sabotage Trial that included 18 other activists and was sentenced to a 15-year imprisonment at the Robben Island Maximum Security Prison.

For years we were made to stand stark naked for long periods of time in an open courtyard, sometimes in biting cold weather."

[3][5] Ebrahim was released from prison in 1979, with the condition that he not participate in any political activities,[1] and followed the ANC's order to go into exile the following year.

He was kidnapped from Swaziland by South African apartheid agents and sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment, again in Robben Island.

[10] In 2010, he had called for an end to the "cleansing of Palestinians from Jerusalem" noting that the "Israel and Palestine conflict (was) primarily about freedom to live in dignity".

[13] Ebrahim, who was also known as Ebie,[1] met his future wife Shannon née Field, a United Nations official, in 1998.

[a][14][15] Ebrahim was a fan of Indian film music, listening to singers including Lata Mangeshkar, Mohammed Rafi, Kishore Kumar, and Geeta Dutt.