[3] Begum Shareefa Hamid Ali was born on 12 December 1883, to a progressive Muslim family in Baroda (now known as Vadodara), Gujarat, the administrative center of colonial British India.

[1] Ali followed her mother's example and supported the movement against this restrictive law, as she saw it as a symbol of social division and gendered oppression.

Begum Hamid Ali learned to speak six languages, Urdu, Gujarati, Persian, Marathi, English and French.

[4] In 1907, Ali attended a session of the Indian National Congress, which developed her interest towards the Swadeshi Movement and the support and uplifting in society of the Harijans.

[10] Ali organized a campaign in Sindh where she gathered Muslim women together to back the bill by pressuring lawmakers.

[7] The Sarda campaign had support from women unified by liberal feminism, including Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and the lower castes.

[6] She became a part of the AIWC as the previous president, Sarojini Naidu, a political activist who fought for Indian independence and a poet, was in prison.

[14] As part of the AIWC, she testified in front of the Joint Select Committee on Indian Constitutional Reform in London in 1933.

[14] In opposition of the establishment of a separate electorate that would bring about unbalanced power to religious-based parties, she argued that this would hinder the reform of inheritance laws.

Ali, as a Congress Muslim, justified her position by alluding to the Iraqi and Turkish secular models, as well as the Indian penal code.