[5] The family was descended from the Sufi saint of Herat, Abdullah Ansari,[6] and had migrated to India with the Mughal emperor Babur in 1526.

[4] In 1910 Ansari earned a Master of Surgery (ChM) from the University of Edinburgh for his thesis Treatment of syphilis by arylarsonates with special reference to recent research.

From 1921 to 1935, Ansari visited Vienna, Paris, Lucerne and London to meet with famed urologists, including Robert Lichtenstern, Eugen Steinach and Serge Voronoff, some of the pioneers of grafting animal testicles onto humans.

[10] He was an outspoken supporter of the Khilafat movement,[8] and led the Indian medical mission to treat the wounded Turkish soldiers during the Balkan Wars.

[10] As a result of in-fighting and political divisions within the League in the 1920s, and later the rise of Muhammad Ali Jinnah and Muslim separatism, Ansari drew closer to Mahatma Gandhi and the Congress Party.

Mahatma Gandhi was a frequent guest when he visited Delhi, and the house was a regular base for Congress political activities.

Those who remained in India received patronage from the Nehru-Gandhi family and became prominent politicians and leading lights of the Congress party.