Shadi Khel (شادی خیل) is the name Chib tradition gives to the Delhi descendants of Raja Shadab Khan, the sixteenth-century raja of Bhimber revered as Baba Shadi Shaheed, by the Afghan wife he married at the court of Delhi. Mohalla Shadi Khel, the quarter of old Delhi where they are said to live, is attested by four testimonies, reaching back to the 1940s, that Raja Muhammad Iftikhar Ali Khan recorded in his 1997 history of the Chibs. Captain Muhammad Nadeem Khan’s Chibhal Nama (c. 2023) repeats two of them and adds that Shadi Khel Chibs also live in Himachal Pradesh and Kangra.
At a glance
- Who
- Descendants of Raja Shadab Khan (Baba Shadi Shaheed) by the wife he married in Delhi
- Name
- “The clan of Shadi”, after Raja Shadi Khan; khel is a Pashto word for a clan
- Their mother
- A noble’s daughter, married by force (Major Singh, c. 1926); the sister of the Afghan noble Haibat Khan Qandhari (the 1997 manuscript; Chibhal Nama)
- Sons
- Two (Thakur Major Singh) or three (Maulvi Zain-ul-Abidin; Chibhal Nama); none is named
- Where
- Mohalla Shadi Khel, an old neighbourhood of Delhi (no street or landmark is given); Chibhal Nama adds Himachal Pradesh and Kangra
- Evidence
- Four oral testimonies collected by the compiler of the 1997 Chib history; Chibhal Nama retells two of them
A raja’s second family
Raja Shadab Khan, ruler of Bhimber in today’s Azad Jammu and Kashmir and ancestor of the Muslim Chib Rajputs, was summoned to Delhi to cure Sultan Ibrahim Lodi of a carbuncle, and Chib tradition holds that he married there. The sources agree on the marriage but not on its circumstances:
- Thakur Major Singh, in his Tarikh-e-Chibhal (c. 1926), says the Sultan married the raja by force to the daughter of one of his nobles, gave him the name Shadab Khan and a palace, and kept him under guard; two sons were born before he escaped home.
- Maulvi Zain-ul-Abidin Kohi Samahnavi, in his manuscript, describes a celebrated courtier of the Mughal emperors who stayed in Delhi for long periods and married the sister of an Afghan noble of the court, Haibat Khan Qandhari. This Afghan Begum bore him three sons, who remained in Delhi, and their quarter is still said to be called Shadi Khel Mohalla, after Shadi Khan.
- A family account of the Pothi, Kasgumah and Lehri houses, printed in the 1997 book, says he married the sister of Mir Haibat Khan Qandahari at the emperor’s wish, and that the Afghan Begum’s descendants stayed in Delhi and came to be called Shadi Khel after their ancestor.
- Chibhal Nama (c. 2023), by Captain (Retd) Muhammad Nadeem Khan, makes the match Ibrahim Lodi’s reward when the raja declared his Islam at court: the bride was the sister of Pir Haibat Khan Qandhari, an amir of Qandahar (p. 55), though another page calls her the daughter of an amir of the court (p. 58). Three sons by her are reported, and her line, the Shadi Khel Chib, still lives in Mohalla Shadi Khel and in the old state of Kangra (pp. 65, 67–68).
The compiler of the 1997 history, Raja Muhammad Iftikhar Ali Khan, treats the marriage to Haibat Khan’s sister as a confirmed fact, and the existence of Mohalla Shadi Khel as its proof (Iftikhar Ali Khan (1997), pp. 93–96). The Baba’s life is told in full in Baba Shadi Shaheed: ruler, healer and martyr.
Set side by side, the three histories give this picture of the Delhi marriage:
What the three histories say
Major Singh, Tarikh-e-Chibhal (c. 1926) · the original
An unnamed noble’s daughter, forced on the raja by the Sultan after he had refused to settle in Delhi; two sons were born before he escaped (pp. 29–30). Major Singh mentions no quarter of Delhi, though his later argument calls Haibat Qandhari the raja’s “relative” (p. 98).
Iftikhar Ali Khan (1997)
The Maulvi’s manuscript makes her the sister of the Afghan noble Haibat Khan Qandhari, married for convenience during long stays at court, with three sons whose quarter is still called Shadi Khel (p. 117); a family account says the marriage was at the emperor’s wish (p. 166), and the compiler treats it as a confirmed fact (p. 93).
Chibhal Nama (c. 2023)
Haibat Khan Qandhari’s sister, given as Ibrahim Lodi’s reward when the raja declared his Islam (p. 55). Three sons are reported, and their line, the Shadi Khel Chib, lives in Delhi and Kangra (pp. 65, 67–68) and in Himachal Pradesh (p. 121); some Chibs in India, it adds, descend from this Delhi wife (p. 66).
Where this leaves us
All three agree on a Delhi marriage and on sons who stayed in Delhi. Major Singh, the oldest, calls the bride only a noble’s daughter, but his word “relative” for Haibat fits the later identification. Her brother’s name, the three sons and the mohalla come from the 1997 book’s sources, which Chibhal Nama follows rather than independently confirms; its Kangra and Himachal branches are its own addition.
What the name Shadi Khel means
In Delhi the raja seems to have been remembered as Raja Shadi Khan, a name also found in British records and echoed in his popular title, Baba Shadi Shaheed. Khel is the Pashto word for a clan or descent group, familiar from the names of many Pashtun lineages, so Shadi Khel simply means “the clan of Shadi”: a fitting name for a family with an Afghan mother. A mohalla is a neighbourhood or quarter of a town.
Where the name Shadi itself comes from is explained in different ways:
What the three histories say
Major Singh, Tarikh-e-Chibhal (c. 1926) · the original
Major Singh does not explain it. He calls the raja Shadi Khan when answering the Gujrat settlement record (pp. 4, 97), and records that Muslims called the shrine Bawa Shadi Shahid and Hindus Sidh Sadi (p. 33).
Iftikhar Ali Khan (1997)
The Delhi quarter is named after Raja Shadi Khan, says the Maulvi’s manuscript (p. 117), and its residents told Raja Inayat Khan the same (p. 96). The British records quoted in the book give the name as Sadi.
Chibhal Nama (c. 2023)
Shadab Khan became Shadi Khan in common speech, his Delhi family’s quarter became Mohalla Shadi Khel, and after his death he became Shadi Shaheed. It rejects the view that he was called “the martyr of the marriage” because his brother-in-law killed him over his Delhi bride, since the quarter had its name before he died (pp. 64, 233–234).
Where this leaves us
All three treat Shadi as a form of his own name, not the word for a wedding. The step-by-step derivation is Chibhal Nama’s; the older books take the name Shadi Khan for granted, and the Hindu form Sidh Sadi shows that it was used in both communities.
Four witnesses
To show that the Baba’s Delhi line survived, the compiler gathered four testimonies, all oral:
| Witness | Background | What he reported |
|---|---|---|
| The late Major Raja Muhammad Ayub Khan of Panjeri | Officer of the Pakistan Army | A fellow Major, born in Delhi, said he was a Chib Rajput descended from Raja Shadab Khan’s Delhi marriage |
| Hamid Akhtar Siddiqui, through Raja Fazal-ur-Rehman Khan of Bandala | From an old Delhi family settled in Karachi; a timekeeper at the Karachi Port Trust | Mohalla Shadi Khel is an ancient neighbourhood of old Delhi |
| Raja Inayat Khan of Mughlora | On the personal staff of the Viceroys Lord Wavell and Lord Mountbatten | Found the mohalla; its people said Raja Shadi Khan’s descendants lived there |
| Subedar (retd.) Raja Muhammad Afzal Khan of Sari’ah, Kharian (d. 1996) | British Indian Army, posted in Delhi in the Second World War | Walked into the mohalla by chance and was told its name |
A Major from Delhi
The first testimony came from the late Major Raja Muhammad Ayub Khan of Panjeri. One day, talking of family with a brother officer in the Pakistan Army, he mentioned that he was a Chib Rajput. The other Major, who had come to Pakistan from Delhi at Partition, replied that he was a Chib Rajput too. His elders, he explained, had always said that Raja Shadab Khan, raja of Bhimber, came to Delhi at the emperor’s summons and married there, and that his family descended from that marriage.
A Delhi family in Karachi
Raja Fazal-ur-Rehman Khan of Bandala, in Tehsil Samahni, went to Karachi to find work soon after the creation of Pakistan and lived there for about half a century, working for the Karachi Port Trust. A colleague, Hamid Akhtar Siddiqui, came from a hereditary Delhi family that had settled in Karachi after Partition and knew every lane of his ancestral city. Asked whether Delhi had a Mohalla Shadi Khel, he replied that it certainly did: an ancient neighbourhood of old Delhi.
A search in old Delhi
Raja Inayat Khan, a respected elder of Mughlora near Bhimber who was 77 when the book was written, served on the personal staff of Lord Wavell and then of Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy, and returned to Pakistan in 1949. During his years in Delhi he remembered the family story and went looking for the mohalla in the old city. He found it: its residents told him that the descendants of Raja Shadi Khan lived there and that the quarter was named after him.
A soldier’s chance visit
The late Subedar Raja Muhammad Afzal Khan of Sari’ah, one of the Ghanial Chib villages of Kharian, met the compiler at Mandi Kotla Arab Ali Khan in 1996, a month or two before his death. During the Second World War, he said, his platoon was posted in Delhi, and while walking in the old city he found himself in a neighbourhood whose residents called it Mohalla Shadi Khel. Young and uninterested in history, he had not realised at the time that he was among the descendants of his own ancestor.
The testimonies retold
Chibhal Nama (c. 2023) retells the first two testimonies in its closing “necessary clarifications” (pp. 292–293), closely following the 1997 book. Its version adds details that the 1997 telling lacks: the Delhi Major says the raja was summoned to treat Ibrahim Lodi, names Mohalla Shadi Khel and says that only Chibs live there, and Hamid Akhtar adds that its people call themselves Chib Rajputs; it also notes that Iftikhar Ali Khan was then practising law in Karachi. These are not fresh witnesses: Chibhal Nama repeats the 1997 accounts, with additions of its own.
Haibat Khan Qandhari, brother-in-law and rival
The marriage lies behind the most famous episode of the Baba’s life. In the Thakur’s account the Sultan sent Haibat Qandhari with a troop of horse after the runaway raja, and Haibat reproached him that it was not a Rajput’s way to marry a man’s daughter and then abandon her. In the Maulvi’s account and the compiler’s, Haibat Khan was the Begum’s own brother, and the duel near Bhimber in which both men died was a fight between brothers-in-law; the family account calls it a family dispute. In Chibhal Nama Haibat Khan is the emperor’s commander, sent after the raja when the Delhi wife herself reports that he has gone, and angry that his sister has been deceived and left behind (pp. 60–61).
Haibat Khan is himself revered as a pir. The book photographs his tomb, heaped with garlands, at Puran in Tehsil Sarai Alamgir, Jhelum District, though the Thakur placed his shrine, known as Pir Qandhari, at Fatehpur Purani near Gujrat. Chibhal Nama joins the two: he fell at Fatehpur, in the Pooran area near Sarai Alamgir, where his tomb stands (pp. 64, 236). The duel, and the parts played by the servant Sajana Teli and a black dog, are told in Rani Thakial, Sajana Teli and the black dog.
Weighing the evidence
For the compiler, the word of a hereditary Delhi resident and the survival of the Baba’s Delhi descendants leave no room for doubt that he went to Delhi and married there. Chibhal Nama calls the Delhi story a “confirmed chapter” of its book (p. 292), but it rests on the same testimonies. The evidence is nonetheless oral, and some of it second-hand: none of the witnesses names a street or landmark in old Delhi, or any member of the family living there, and no Delhi record is cited. The upheavals of 1947 also carried many old Delhi Muslim families to Pakistan, including, by these very testimonies, a Shadi Khel officer and the Siddiqui family. What the tradition offers is four separate memories, from soldiers, a member of the Viceroy’s staff and a Delhi family, that point to the same place. The Delhi marriage also lies at the heart of the debate over the raja’s conversion, set out in Forced or free? How Baba Shadi Shaheed embraced Islam.
If your family knows Mohalla Shadi Khel, or descends from the Shadi Khel of Delhi, we would be glad to hear from you.
Frequently asked questions
What is Mohalla Shadi Khel?
Mohalla Shadi Khel is a quarter of old Delhi which, according to Chib tradition recorded in Raja Muhammad Iftikhar Ali Khan’s 1997 history, is home to the descendants of Raja Shadab Khan, Baba Shadi Shaheed. Its residents told Chib visitors that it was named after Raja Shadi Khan.
Who are the Shadi Khel?
The Shadi Khel are the descendants of Raja Shadab Khan of Bhimber by the wife he married in Delhi, whose sons stayed there when he returned home. The name means the clan of Shadi, khel being a Pashto word for a clan.
Who was the mother of the Shadi Khel?
Thakur Major Singh’s Tarikh-e-Chibhal (c. 1926), the oldest account, calls her the daughter of a noble whom the Sultan forced the raja to marry. Maulvi Zain-ul-Abidin’s manuscript, the 1997 history and Chibhal Nama (c. 2023) say she was the sister of the Afghan noble Haibat Khan Qandhari, who later fought the raja in a duel in which both men died.
Where is Mohalla Shadi Khel?
The book places it in old Delhi but gives no street or landmark. Raja Inayat Khan of Mughlora found it while serving on the Viceroy’s staff in the 1940s, and Subedar Raja Muhammad Afzal Khan visited it while posted in Delhi during the Second World War.
Do the Shadi Khel live only in Delhi?
The 1997 history places them in Mohalla Shadi Khel in old Delhi. Chibhal Nama (c. 2023) adds that the Shadi Khel Chibs also live in Himachal Pradesh and the old state of Kangra, but it names no family or village there.
Are the Shadi Khel Chib Rajputs?
By descent, yes: a Delhi-born officer of the Pakistan Army told Major Raja Muhammad Ayub Khan of Panjeri that he was a Chib Rajput descended from Raja Shadab Khan’s Delhi marriage. The family’s name, Shadi Khel, comes from their ancestor, Raja Shadi Khan.
Sources
- Thakur Major Singh Chib, Tarikh-e-Rajgan-e-Bhimber wa Qaum-e-Chibhal (Tarikh-e-Chibhal; Urdu, c. 1926), pp. 4, 29–33, 97–98.
- Raja Muhammad Iftikhar Ali Khan, Raja Shadab Khan alias Hazrat Baba Shadi Shaheed (Urdu, Barhang/Karachi, 1997), pp. 88–96, 108, 116–118, 152, 157, 165–167, 336–339, 356, 365, 368.
- Captain (Retd) Muhammad Nadeem Khan, Chibhal Nama (Urdu, Dua Publications, no date [c. 2023]), pp. 55, 58, 60–61, 64–68, 121, 233–234, 236, 292–293.
- Thakur Major Singh of Dewa Vatala, Tarikh-e-Chibhal (1983 Bikrami, c. 1926), pp. 26–34, as quoted in Iftikhar Ali Khan (1997).
- Maulvi Zain-ul-Abidin Kohi Samahnavi, unpublished manuscript history of Chibhal, as quoted in Iftikhar Ali Khan (1997).
- Sir Lepel Griffin and C. F. Massy, The Chiefs of the Punjab (Urdu version, Tazkira-e-Ruasa-e-Punjab), as quoted in Iftikhar Ali Khan (1997).
This article draws on all three Chib histories: Major Singh’s Tarikh-e-Chibhal (c. 1926, the original), the 1997 history and Chibhal Nama (c. 2023).
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