Fateh Ali Khan Qizilbash

فتح علي خان قزلباش

– †

† Hijri date derived by computation from the Gregorian/Julian date; it may differ from the transmitted date by a day or two.

Lahore → Karbala

Nawab Sir Fateh Ali Khan Qizilbash (1862–1923) was a Lahore landlord of the Punjab who succeeded his uncle in 1898 as head of the Qizilbash clan, sat on the Punjab Legislative Council and the Council of India, promulgated the idea of Shia College, Lucknow and was among its founders, was made KCIE in 1921, and was buried in Karbala.

Depth

At a glance

Roles
Politician
Region
South Asia
Identifiers
Wikidata
Review

Life in time

1825185018751900192519501975
The Colonial Era · The Modern Era Contemporaries: Abadi Bano Begum · Abdurreshid Ibrahim · Ahmad al-Hamlawi · Ahmet Cevdet Oran · Ahmed Rıza

In space

LahoreKarbala

Map: Natural Earth, public domain · places and route from the graph

Place in the story

    shia-twelver (documented)

    Roles are dated and sourced; the museum describes the act and attributes the judgement.

    Summary

    Nawab Sir Fateh Ali Khan Qizilbash (1862 – 28 October 1923) was a landlord from Lahore, Punjab, during the British Raj. He succeeded his uncle in 1898 as head of the Qizilbash clan, sat on the Punjab Legislative Council and the Council of India, was among the founders of Shia College, Lucknow, was made a Knight Commander of the Indian Empire in 1921, and was buried in Karbala. No Arabic Wikipedia article exists for him; this account is written from the English and Urdu articles and the Wikidata item. 1 2 3

    Family and estates

    His father was Sardar Nisar Ali Khan and his grandfather Ali Raza Khan. Besides his Punjab estates he was taluqdar of Nawabganj Aliabad in Bahraich district of the United Provinces, where development works and the planting of mango, litchi and other orchards are credited to him. 1 2

    Career in government service

    In 1895 he assisted the government during the Chitral Expedition, succeeding in inducing a large number of border tribes to be friendly to the Government of India, and was rewarded with 2,000 acres of land in the Chenab colony for his followers. He was elected to the Punjab Legislative Council and represented the Punjab at the Famine Conference of 1897. In 1902 he was chosen to represent the Punjab at the coronation of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra. In 1904 he was elected to the Council of India as a non-official member representing the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh. 1

    During the First World War he donated 22,000 rupees, along with other contributions, to the war effort, and in 1921 he was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire. 1

    Shia College and religious and educational works

    In 1914 he promulgated the idea of Shia College, Lucknow. The Urdu article, resting on a distinct Bahraich source, records that he was among the founders of the college, that he worked alongside the Raja of Mahmudabad, Sir Ali Muhammad Khan, for the establishment of Aligarh Muslim University, and that he built an imambargah in Bahraich and buildings in Lucknow and Bahraich. 1 2

    The sources report these as his own religious and educational works; they are the basis of the Shia reading in his data record, where it is stated that neither article names a branch and that "Twelver" follows the founder's mapping rule, in the context of Lahore's Qizilbash community and his Karbala burial. 1 2 3

    Death and burial

    He died on 28 October 1923 and was buried in Karbala, according to the Urdu article; the Wikidata item agrees on the burial place. 2 3

    Sources

    • The defined source entities cited above, recorded in data/source/.
    • Revisions of this article must be dated, and must name the source that changed each fact.

    Connections

    Explore the connections

    Lived in
    Lahore
    Buried in
    Karbala

    People and things also explored

    Badshahi Mosque· al-Duz takes Lahore and is killed· Building the fortified wall around the shrine of al-Ha'ir in Karbala· Abd Allah ibn al-Husayn (the infant of Karbala)· Abdur Rahman Chughtai· Abdus Salam· Abul A'la Maududi· Ahmad Shah Qajar

    Sources

    1. Fateh Ali Khan Qizilbash — English Wikipedia
    2. Fateh Ali Khan Qizilbash — Urdu Wikipedia
    3. Fateh Ali Khan Qizilbash — Wikidata Q12839455
    Cite this page

    islam.museum contributors. “Fateh Ali Khan Qizilbash”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/person/fateh-ali-khan-qizilbash/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-27.

    Improve this page on GitHub · Report an error · JSON

    Wing

    People

    Prophets, companions, scholars, rulers, scientists, poets, travelers: women and men who shaped the story.
    Related

    Badshahi Mosque

    A mosque in Lahore, dated to 1671 CE.