Jamia Millia Islamia[6] is a public and research university located in Delhi, India.

Originally established at Aligarh, United Provinces (present-day Uttar Pradesh, India) during the British Raj in 1920, it moved to its current location in Okhla in 1935.

Jamia Millia Islamia became a central university by an act of the Indian parliament which was passed on 26 December 1988.

[8] The university was founded by Muhammad Iqbal, Mohammad Ali Jauhar,[9] Hakim Ajmal Khan, Mahmud Hasan Deobandi, Mukhtar Ahmed Ansari, Abdul Majeed Khwaja, Zakir Hussain, Mahatma Gandhi and Maulana Azad.

Its foundation stone was laid by Mahmud Hasan Deobandi, the leader of Silk Letter Movement and the first student of Darul Uloom Deoband along with his fellow Mohammed Ali Jauhar, Hakim Ajmal Khan, Mukhtar Ahmad Ansari, and Abdul Majid Khwaja.

[16] Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar, Hakim Ajmal Khan, Dr. Mukhtar Ahmad Ansari, and Abdul Majeed Khwaja were the founding members and it was established mainly in response to the demand of these fellows of the Aligarh Muslim University for a new National Muslim University which would be free from government influence as they felt that the administration of Aligarh Muslim University was of pro-British stance.

[17][18][19] The founding members included Muhammad Ali Jauhar, Hakim Ajmal Khan and Mukhtar Ahmed Ansari.

The foundation stone was laid by Mahmud Hasan Deobandi, an Islamic scholar and activist of the Indian independence movement.

[17][21] The foundation committee of Jamia included Kifayatullah Dehlawi, Hussain Ahmad Madani, Syed Sulaiman Nadwi, Abdul Haq, Abdul Bari Firangi Mahali, Shabbir Ahmad Usmani, Sanaullah Amritsari, Muhammad Iqbal, Syed Mahmud, and Saifuddin Kitchlew.

[21] On 1 March 1935, the foundation stone for a school building was laid at Okhla, then a nondescript village in the southern outskirts of Delhi.

[21][29] The University Grants Commission gave Jamia Millia Islamia the deemed status in 1962.

In 2006, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia paid a visit to the university and donated ₹130 crore(US$30 million)[a] for the construction of a library and a research center.

[34] Jamia has centers of learning and research, including the Anwar Jamal Kidwai Mass Communication Research Centre (MCRC), Faculty of Engineering & Technology, Faculty of Fine Arts, Centre for Theoretical Physics and the Maulana Mohammad Ali Jauhar Academy of International Studies.

Jamia Millia Islamia joined the green campaign and installed 2,250-kilowatt solar panels on the campus.

[36] Former Vice-Chancellor, Najma Akhtar, at centenary convocation on 23 July 2023 announced that the university has obtained approval from the Centre government to establish a medical college.

[37] Jamia won its first gold and silver medal in wrestling in 1977 at the All India Inter University Championship.

The library subscribes to open access to videos; e-resources; eBooks; e-journals; other academic materials; databases; MOOCs courses.

[54][55] This Faculty has nine departments offering programmes in PhD, M Phil (pre-PhD), Postgraduate, Undergraduate, Diploma and Certificate courses.

The faculty has departments including Arabic, English, Hindi, History and Culture, Islamic Studies, Persian, Iranology, Urdu, Sanskrit and Foreign Languages such as Korean, Turkish, French and Spanish and Latin.

The campus has an art gallery named after the Indian painter M. F. Hussain.The Faculty of Social Sciences consists of nine departments.

[58] The faculty of Life Sciences, based in Srinivasa Ramanujan Block at Mujeeb Bagh Campus, consists of two departments, Biosciences and Biotechnology, which offers courses in Ph.D., postgraduate, undergraduate and diploma in Unani Pharmacy and Ph.D. Unani Medicine.

[61] The Mass Communication Research Centre was established in 1982 by Anwar Jamal Kidwai, then vice-chancellor (later chancellor) of Jamia Millia Islamia.

The FTK-Centre for Information Technology provides internet facility for the faculty members, staff, research scholars, and students.

The centre aims to promote research in the fields of nanoscience and nanotechnology, with potential applications towards fulfilling national strategic needs.

[66] Formerly Academy of Third World Studies, MMAJ Academy of International Studies was established in 1988 under the initiative of then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi to conduct inter-disciplinary research on social, political and economic issues pertaining to the developing countries.

[67] Subsequently, it was renamed after one of the co-founders of Jamia Millia Islamia, Maulana Mohamad Ali Jauhar.

[68] Jamia Millia Islamia also imparts education from nursery to senior secondary level.

[84] According to U.S. News & World Report 2024-2025, Jamia Millia Islamia is ranked 718 in Best Global Universities and 205 in Asia and 8 in India.

[87][88] Since its inception, Jamia Millia Islamia has produced alumni across various disciplines, including, Shah Rukh Khan, Kabir Khan, Mouni Roy, Arfa Khanum Sherwani, Barkha Dutt, Anjana Om Kashyap, Ampareen Lyngdoh, Kunwar Danish Ali, Tabish Mehdi, Virendar Sehwag, Imran Raza Ansari, Danish Siddiqui and Mohammad Najeeb Qasmi.