Chinggis (Genghis) Khān (c. 557–624/1162–1227) was the founder of the Mongol empire, whose career and legacy reshaped the mediaeval Muslim world. Most of our information about his life derives from the anonymous and partly mythical Mongolian source known as The secret history of the Mongols, compiled probably soon after Chinggis Khān’s death. This is supplemented by nonextant Mongol sources that were partially preserved in Persian or Chinese works, mainly Rashīd al-Dīn’s Jāmiʿ al-tawārīkh (“Collection of chronicles”) and the anonymous Shengwu qingshenglu (“Records of the ho…

Āṣaf Khān Abū l-Ḥasan (976–1051/1569–1641) was one of the leading nobles of the emperors Jahāngīr (r. 1605–27) and Shāh Jahān (r. 1037–69/1628–58). His father, Ghiyāth Beg Iʿtimād al-Dawla, came from Iran to India in 1577 and entered the service of Akbar (r. 1556–1605). After Nūr Jahān's marriage to Jahāngīr in 1020/1611, Abū l-Ḥasan was appointed khān-i sāmān and given the title Iʿtiqād Khān. In 1021/1612, his daughter Arjumand Bānū Begam Mumtāz Maḥall married Prince Khurram, later Shāh Jahān. He himself received the title of Āṣaf Khān in 1023/1614 and attained the rank of 7,000 dhāt an…

Kh v āfī Khān (c. 1074–1144/1664–1732) was the Indo-Persian historian author of the Muntakhab al-lubāb (“The quintessential selection,” henceforth ML, for the Aḥmad-Qādir-Haig edition), a comprehensive history of India. He was a mid-level Mughal bureaucrat who served mainly in the provinces of Deccan and Gujarat. 1. Life Muḥammad Hāshim, granted the title Hāshim ʿAlī Khān, was further ennobled by the Mughal emperor Muḥammad Shāh (r. 1131–61/1719–48) as Khvāfī Khān Niẓām al-Mulkī, referring to his family connection with Khvāf, a district and town in Khurāsān, near Nīshāpū…

ʿInāyat Khān (lit., lord favour) was a Mughal title bestowed on two officials of the empire. Muḥammad Ṭāhir ʿInāyat Khān (d. 1082/1671), under the pen name (takhalluṣ) Āshnā, was the author of the Mulakhkhaṣ-i Shāh-Jahān-nāma (“Summary chronicle of Shāh Jahān”). ʿInāyat Khān was distantly related to the emperor Shāh Jahān (r. 1037–68/1628–58), his mother being a niece of Shāh Jahān’s wife Mumtāz Maḥall (d. 1041/1631). His grandfather, Khwāja Abū l-Ḥasan (d. 1042/1632–3), and his father, Ẓafar Khān (d. 1073/1662–3), were Mughal n…

Ḥabīballāh (Ḥabībullāh) Khān (1872–1919) was son of the amīr ʿAbd al-Raḥmān (r. 1880–1901) and a slave girl from the court of Jahāndār Shāh, the mīr (amīr) of Badakhshān (r. 1864–9). He succeeded ʿAbd al-Raḥmān and ruled Afghanistan from 3 October 1901 to 20 February 1919, when he was assassinated at Kalla-gūsh, in Laghmān. Ḥabīballāh Khān inherited a functioning administrative and military system. His first official communications indicated the young amīr’s intention to continue the isolationist policies of his father: In order to shield his country from foreign…

Chaghatay Khān (r. 624–42/1227–44) was Chinggis Khān’s second son by his chief wife, Börte, and the ancestor of the Chaghatayid khāns who ruled Central Asia until 771/1370 and Moghulistan (eastern Central Asia, southern Kazakhstan, and Xinjiang) until 1088/1677. With his brothers Jochi and Ögödei, Chaghatay took part in his father’s campaigns in northern China (607–12/1211–6) and in Central Asia, conquering Utrār (616/1219) and Khwārazm (617–8/1220–1), and building bridges and roads in Central Asia to facilitate fu…

Muḥammad Bakht Khān (1212/1797–1275–1859) was the nominal commander of the rebel forces ranged against the British in Delhi during the uprising of 1857. Of Pushtūn origin and connected to the Rohillā (also Ruhelā) chiefs of Rohilkhan'd' (also Rulelkhan'd', the capital of which is Bareilly, in today's Uttar Pradesh), Bakht Khān served for forty years as an officer in the East India Company horse artillery. He fought in the First Afghān War (1839–42), and rose to the position of jāmadār (lit. “wardrobe keeper,” and hence “guard”), a rank of lieutenant in the British Indian …

Bakhtāvar Khān was a Kashmiri eunuch who entered the service of Awrangzīb in 1065/1654. He served as a secretary and confidante assisting the prince—later, the emperor ʿĀlamgīr (r. 1068–1118/1658–1707)—in his military and political endeavours. As a partisan of Awrangzīb in the war to succeed Shāh Jāhān (r. 1037–68/1627–58), he pursued Dārā Shikūh after the battle of Sāmūgaṛh (1068/1658); served as whisk-bearer during Awrangzīb’s second and more elaborate coronation, in 1069/1659; was titled Khān, in 1069/1659; and, received the imperial rank (manṣab) of 1000/150, in 1076/16…

Inayat Khan (ʿInāyat Khān, 1882–1927) was an Indian-born Ṣūfī who established “universalist” Ṣūfism in the United States and Europe and was the originator of the Sufi Order, now the Inayati Order. 1. Biography Inayat Khan was born on 5 July 1882 in Baroda (now Vadodara), then the capital of an independent princely state in India, into a family of successful musicians connected to the court of the House of Gaekwar. He studied music with his grandfather, Mawlā Bakhsh (d. 1896), learning to play the sitar (sitār) and the veena (vīńā). He also studied Ṣūfism, joining the Chishtī order u…

Pulād Khān (d. 1876), also Fulād Khān, was the name that a Kyrgyz (Qïrghïz, Qırghız, Kirghiz) religious figure named Mullā Ishāq adopted as pretender to the throne of the Khoqand Khānate (Uzbek Qo’qon, Pers. Khūkand). He appears in the Central Asian historical record in 1873, alongside the Kipchak (Qïpchaq) commander ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Āftabachī, leading a rebellion against both Khoqand’s dynastic family and Russian colonial interests. The real Pulād Khān was the youngest son of Murad Khān (d. 1844), who had ruled the Khoqand Khānate for little more than a week i…

Bayrām Khān Bahārlū Qarā Qoyūnlū, titled Khān-i Khānān (c. 902–68/1497–1561) was Humāyūn’s (r. 937–47/1530–40 and 962–3/1555–6) chief officer during the emperor’s return to Hindūstān in 962/1555 and then regent for Akbar (r. 963–1014/1556–1605) from 963/1556 to 967/1560. Bayrām Khān played a pivotal role in the establishment of what would become the Mughal Empire. Members of the paramount clan of the Turkoman Qarā Qoyūnlū confederation, Bayrām Khān’s Bahārlū ancestors moved east to Khurāsān durin…

Mustaʿidd Khān (b. c.1060/1650, d. 1136/1724) was born in Aḥmadnagar (Deccan) and died in Delhi. He was raised by his foster father Muḥammad Bakhtāvar Khān (d. 1096/1685), author of the Mirʾāt al-ʿālam (“The mirror of the world”). From 1096/1685 onwards, Mustaʿidd Khān worked successively as overseer (mushrif) of the royal painting atelier (naqqāsh-khāna) and of the royal carpet-weaving workshop (jānamāz-khāna), as a writer (vāqiʿ-nigār), as guardian of the private royal treasury (khavāṣṣān), and, from 1702/1114, as “ munshī of the nudhūrāt” (Mustaʿidd Khān, 275), superinte…

Allāh Virdī Khān (d. 1073/1662) was an important ghulām (slave) at the Ṣafavid court. He was the son of the Armenian Khusraw Khān, who was also a ghulām. When his father was appointed beglerbeg (governor) of Shirwān in 1054/1644, Allāh Virdī Khān succeeded him as mīrshikār-bashī, master of the royal hunt, a position whose duties included mediation between the Armenian community of the New Julfa quarter of Isfahan—where thousands of Armenians had been forcibly relocated by Shāh ʿAbbās I (r. 995–1038/1587–1629) in 1013–4/1604–5, with the aim…

Nawwāb Muḥammad Ṣiddīq Ḥasan Khān al-Qannawjī al-B̲h̲opālī (1832–90) was a prominent Islamic scholar and writer and a founder of the Salafī Ahl-i Ḥadīth movement. His family claimed descent from Ḥusayn b. ʿAlī, the grandson of the prophet Muḥammad. Some of his ancestors were renowned as Ṣūfīs of the Naqshbandiyya or Chishtiyya orders (the Naqshbandiyya, whose eponymous founder, Bahāʾ al-Dīn Naqshband, died in 791/1389, is now widespread; the Chishtiyya probably originated in Chisht, near Herat, towa…

ʿ Abd al-Raḥīm Khān, Khān-i Khānān (964–1036/1556–1627), was a major figure of the Mughal nobility under the emperors Akbar (r. 963–1014/1556–1605) and Jahāngīr (r. 1014–37/1605–27). Born in India, he was the son of Bayram Khān (d. 968/1561), a Turkoman amīr (nobleman) who had played a major part in the reconquest of India by Humāyūn (913–63/1508–56) and later became Akbar's first wakīl (deputy). After Bayram Khān's assassination in 968/1561, Akbar took the amīr's only son under his personal care and entrusted his education to several distinguished scholars. In ord…

Maulvī Chirāgh ʿAlī Khān (1844–95), also known by his honorary title of Aʿẓam Yār Jang, was an Indian modernist author who served in the government of the Muslim-ruled state of Hyderabad from 1877 to 1895. He was born in India’s North-Western Provinces to a family of Kashmiri origin serving the East India Company. Following his father’s death, when Chirāgh ʿAlī was twelve, his mother and paternal grandmother guided his instruction in Persian and Urdu. Self-taught otherwise, including in English, Ch…

Liyāqat ʿAlī Khān (1895–1951) was honorary secretary of the All-India Muslim League from 1936 to 1947 and prime minister of Pakistan from 1947 to 1951. 1. Early life, education, and political activity He was born in the Karnāl district of east Panjāb on 1 October 1895, the second son of a well-to-do landlord, Nawwāb Rustam ʿAlī Khān (d. 1918) of the Mandal family, which claimed to have immigrated five hundred years earlier from Iran and to descend from the Sāsānid king Anūshirwān (Khusraw I, r. 531–79 C.E.). British officials,…

ʿAlī Murād Khān Zand (r. 1195–9/1781–5) was the fourth ruler of the Zand dynasty, which dominated southern and central Iran in the late twelfth/eighteenth century (1163–1209/1750–1794). ʿAlī Murād became the nephew of the dynasty’s the first ruler, Karīm Khān Zand (r. 1164–93/1751–79), when his mother, a sister of Karīm Khān’s commander Zakī Khān (d. 1193/1779), married Karīm Khān’s brother Ṣādiq Khān (r. 1193–5/1779–81, d. 1196/1782). After Karīm Khān died, ʿAlī Murād Khān first allied with Zakī K…

Ghāzān Khān Maḥmūd (670–703/1271–1304) was a Mongol Īlkhān of Iran. He was born on 29 Rabīʿ II 670/5 November 1271, the son of the Īlkhān Arghun (d. 690/1291), and served his father as governor of Khurāsān and Māzandarān. His chief task there was to wage war against the rebel Mongol noyan Nawrūz (d. 697/1297), who had established himself in Khurāsān with the backing of the Central Asian Mongols but who submitted and was reconciled with Ghāzān in 694/1294. In 694/1295, his uncle, the Īlkhān Gaikhatu, was overthrown in a revolt by a distant cousi…

Aḥmad Rizā Khān Barelwī (1856–1921) was a Sunnī Muslim scholar of the Ḥanafī school, born in Bareilly, Rohilkhand, in north India. He was born just a year before the failed Indian revolt led in the name of the aged Mughal ruler, Bahādur Shāh Ẓafar, against East India Company rule. Its failure ushered in Crown rule in 1858 and led in 1877 to the proclamation of Queen Victoria as Empress of India. Aḥmad Rizā's life was thus lived out in the context of British colonial rule in India. Barring two pilgrimages to Mecca and some brief visits to cities within India, Aḥmad Rizā lived out h…