Kot Chibban (کوٹ چباں), also known as Dhandar Kot, is a village of the Ghanial Chibs about eight miles east of Bhimber in Azad Kashmir, built on a mound where an old fort once stood. In the same tehsil, east of Bhimber, lies Mughlora, remembered as the place where Raja Chib Chand, the Katoch prince from Kangra who founded the Chib Rajput dynasty, first made his home in the early fifteenth century, according to the 1997 Chib history of Raja Muhammad Iftikhar Ali Khan.
At a glance
- Kot Chibban
- Village in Tehsil and District Bhimber, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, about eight miles east of Bhimber on the Bhimber–Iftikharabad–Chhamb road, the old road from Bhimber to Jammu
- Also called
- Dhandar Kot, after the large neighbouring village of Dhandar Kalan
- The fort
- Stood on the high mound on which the village is built; by the 1990s only scattered traces and ruins remained
- Mughlora
- Village east of Bhimber, in Tehsil and District Bhimber, where Raja Chib Chand settled in the first quarter of the fifteenth century (per the book)
- Got
- Both villages are Ghanial, descendants of Raja Ghanni Khan, grandson of Baba Shadi Shaheed
- Best-known family
- Haji Raja Fazal Karim, Al-Haj Raja Muhammad Sharif Khan, and Raja Muhammad Rafiq Khan and his brothers, industrialists and benefactors of the Bhimber area
- Main source
- Iftikhar Ali Khan (1997), pp. 65–67, 347–352, 426
Kot Chibban: the village on the mound
Leave Bhimber eastwards on the Bhimber–Iftikharabad–Chhamb road, the old road to Jammu, and after about eight miles you reach Kot Chibban. The village belongs to the Ghanial got of the Chib Rajputs, the branch descended from Raja Ghanni Khan, and it lies next to Dhandar Kalan, a large village of the area, which is why it is also popularly called Dhandar Kot (Iftikhar Ali Khan 1997, p. 347; see the Ghanial Chibs).
The name tells its history. Kot means a fort, and the village sits on a high mound where, the book says, a fort stood in ancient days. By the time the book was written the fort itself had vanished, worn away by time, though its traces and ruins could still be seen here and there. The compiler treats the striking agreement of the local traditions about the old fort as proof that it existed; he does not say who built it or when.
Once the fort was gone, Kot Chibban was, in the book’s phrase, a kot in name only, and for generations it was an ordinary village. Then, as a Persian proverb quoted by the compiler has it, “every perfection has its decline, and every decline its perfection”: about a quarter of a century before the book was written, that is from the early 1970s, Kot Chibban became one of the best-known villages of District Bhimber and of Azad Kashmir. The book gives the credit to two men, Al-Haj Raja Muhammad Sharif Khan and Raja Muhammad Rafiq Khan (p. 347).
The neighbourhood also played its part in 1947. When the Tehsildar of Bhimber ordered the people of several villages to leave their homes on 20 October 1947, Dhandar was among them; two men of Dhandar Kalan, Major Fazal Ilahi and Thanedar Nawab Khan, shared ten rifles for the attack on Bhimber, and a squad lay in ambush on the slope west of Dhandar (pp. 45–46). The story is told in the liberation of Bhimber, October 1947.
The Kot Chibban family
Al-Haj Raja Muhammad Sharif Khan
At the time of writing Raja Muhammad Sharif Khan was close to seventy-five. Like many young men of his region he began his career in the army, but, adventurous by nature, he left the service and went to England, where he spent a large part of his life. On his return he went into industry and founded Kashmir Tobacco Industries (Private) Limited at Barhang, which within a few years made his name; in 1997–98 he was its chairman. The book praises him as a philanthropist who served the whole Bhimber area, “every caste and brotherhood” alike, and points above all to the Raja Yasin Trust Eye Hospital, then being built at Barhang to give free treatment to poor patients. It is named after his son, Raja Muhammad Yasin Sharif, who died in 1996 (pp. 348, 426).
Haji Raja Fazal Karim
Sharif Khan’s elder brother, Haji Raja Fazal Karim, is described as a pious man devoted to the saints, and above all to Hazrat Haji Rahmat Ali Sarkar. With the saint’s special permission he built a large Jamia Masjid at Dhandar Kalan, on the Bhimber–Kot Jamel road opposite the Government High School, together with a religious seminary. A roadside board, whose text the book reproduces, names the Dargah Safina-e-Ghausia, founded by Haji Rahmat Ali Sarkar, and records that it stands under the supervision of Haji Raja Fazal Karim of Kot Chibban. He also paid from his own pocket the whole cost, about one lakh (100,000) rupees, of building the Boys’ Primary School of Kot Chibban on its present site (pp. 348–349).
Raja Muhammad Rafiq Khan and his brothers
Raja Muhammad Rafiq Khan, chairman of Sultan Tobacco Industries (Private) Limited in the Small Industrial Estate at Bhimber, is portrayed as a businessman with a reputation across Azad Kashmir as a “servant of the people”. The book gives one example of his generosity: in 1997 the District Bhimber administration marked the golden jubilee of Pakistan with horse-riding and tent-pegging competitions, in which leading horsemen from all over Pakistan took part, and Rafiq Khan met the greater part of the cost. He was also a member of the Advisory Committee of the shrine of Baba Shadi Shaheed (pp. 187, 349–350; see the custodians of the shrine).
His full brothers, as the book lists them, were Raja Muhammad Iqbal Khan, marketing director of Kashmir Tobacco Industries; Haji Raja Muhammad Razzaq Khan, managing director of New Kashmir Tobacco Industries, Barhang; Raja Mushtaq Ahmad Khan, who settled in England; Haji Raja Javed Akhtar Khan; and Haji Raja Muhammad Shafiq Khan and Raja Shahid Iqbal Khan, both directors of New Kashmir Tobacco Industries. The book prints portraits of four of the family: Sharif Khan, Rafiq Khan, Razzaq Khan and Iqbal Khan (p. 351).
The family tree in the book was compiled by Raja Bashir Ahmad Khan of Pothi Jang Khan, a retired revenue inspector, the same man who as a patwari had taken charge of Baba Shadi Shaheed’s shrine for the Auqaf Department in 1961. It runs as follows (p. 426):
- Rustam Ali Khan
- Karam Ilahi Khan
- Haji Fazal Karim Khan; beneath his side of the chart are listed Raja Muhammad Rafiq Khan, Raja Muhammad Iqbal Khan, Haji Raja Muhammad Razzaq Khan, Raja Mushtaq Ahmad Khan, Raja Javed Akhtar Khan, Raja Muhammad Shafiq Khan and Raja Shahid Iqbal Khan
- Al-Haj Muhammad Sharif Khan
- Raja Muhammad Yasin Sharif (d. 1996)
- Karam Ilahi Khan
The text of the book does not state in so many words how Rafiq Khan and his brothers are related to Sharif Khan and Fazal Karim; the chart simply sets them in the next generation, on Fazal Karim’s side.
Mughlora: where Chib Chand settled
East of Bhimber, in the same Tehsil and District of Bhimber, lies Mughlora (مغلورہ), which the book calls “the historic place of the former Bhimber state”. Here, it says, in the first quarter of the fifteenth century Raja Chib Chand, a prince of the royal Katoch house of Nagarkot Kangra and the progenitor of the Chib Rajputs, bade farewell for ever to his ancestral homeland and took up residence. The Chibs of Mughlora are of the Ghanial got (pp. 65, 95, 352).
The fullest account of the arrival comes from Mian Onkar Singh Chib’s Tarikh-e-Chibhal, which the book quotes at length (pp. 65–67; the whole story is told in Raja Chib Chand). Narain Chand, son of the Kangra prince Partab Chand, who had been passed over for the throne, left Kangra at the beginning of the fifteenth century to win a kingdom of his own. With a few servants and his four sons, Chib Chand, Dhru Chand, Ambu Chand and Aji Chand, he crossed the Jammu hills into the Bhimber state and camped at Mughlora, lodging in the house of an elderly Brahmin woman.
A servant sent to Bhimber to sell a jewel for provisions was told by the shopkeepers that so fine a stone was fit only for a king, and it was taken to the ruler, Raja Sri Pat of the Thakial Rajputs. Impressed by the jewel, and by the good report of young Chib Chand that the old woman, who worked in the palace, gave to the queens, Sri Pat married his only daughter to Chib Chand and gave him several villages east of Bhimber as a jagir. When Sri Pat died without a son, Chib Chand outmanoeuvred his heirs, drove out the Thakials and became master of Bhimber (see where the Chibs came from).
To the east of Mughlora he also founded a village, which he named Kangra, so that the memory of his former homeland would remain fresh.
— Mian Onkar Singh, Tarikh-e-Chibhal, quoted in Iftikhar Ali Khan (1997), p. 66
That village of Kangra survived: the book adds that it was the birthplace of Chaudhry Muhammad Sharif, B.A., LL.B., Advocate of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir High Court and in the 1990s the most senior member of the District Bar at Bhimber (p. 66).
In the oldest history (c. 1926)
The oldest written account of Mughlora is in Thakur Major Singh’s Tarikh-e-Chibhal, now being published online (see Tarikh-e-Chibhal, chapter by chapter). He calls Mughlora a well-known village of the Bhimber state and, alone among the accounts quoted here, gives its distance: Narain Chand and his four sons camped there “like travellers”, four miles east of Bhimber, because few of their men were left (pp. 9, 21). He mentions no old Brahmin woman; in his telling it is the jewel alone that brings the family to Raja Sri Pat’s notice (pp. 21–22). After the wedding, he writes, Chib Chand settled east of Bhimber for good and founded a village east of Mughlora that he named Kangra, after the city of his old homeland, adding that the village still bore that name (p. 22).
He dates the arrival to “the end of the thirteenth century Bikrami”, about 1240 AD, earlier than every date in the table below except Raja Wilayat Khan’s; the reasons for doubting it are set out in When did the Chibs come to Bhimber? The story of Sri Pat’s family is told in The Thakial Rajputs.
One village, many spellings
Almost every account of the Chibs’ beginnings that the book quotes places Chib Chand’s first home near Bhimber at Mughlora, but they spell the name in different ways and disagree about when he came (see the Katoch origins of the Chib Rajputs).
| Source, as quoted in the book | Name of the village | Date of Chib Chand’s arrival |
|---|---|---|
| Settlement report of Gujrat District, 1868 (p. 20) | Manglora (Mughlora), near the present city of Bhimber | Not given |
| H. A. Rose, Glossary, 1911 (p. 26) | Maghlora, near Bhimber in the Jammu hills | “Fourteen centuries earlier”, as printed in the book’s Urdu translation |
| Griffin and Massy, Chiefs of the Punjab (p. 156) | Malaura or Mauj Pura, “present-day Maghlora”, near Bhimber | About 1400 |
| Raja Wilayat Khan, unpublished research (pp. 29–31) | Mangora, where Sri Pat asked his son-in-law to live | About 1230 |
| Family history of the Pothi, Kasgumah and Lehri Rajgan (p. 165) | Maghlora, near Bhimber | About 1350 |
| Mian Onkar Singh, Tarikh-e-Chibhal (p. 65) | Mughlora, east of Bhimber | Beginning of the fifteenth century |
| The compiler (p. 352) | Mughlora | First quarter of the fifteenth century |
Sources differ
The accounts also disagree about Raja Sri Pat and how Chib Chand came to the throne. Tarikh-e-Chibhal makes Sri Pat a Thakial Rajput who died without a son; the 1868 Settlement calls him a Brahman; Raja Wilayat Khan names him Sri Pat Wadhan and his daughter Punja Devi; the family history of the Pothi, Kasgumah and Lehri Rajgan says he was killed in a skirmish; and Griffin and Massy’s version has Chib Chand invite his father-in-law’s family to a feast and have them killed (pp. 20, 30, 65–67, 156–157, 165). The compiler himself questions Raja Wilayat Khan’s account, asking why a prince who held the fertile plain of Chaprar would have lodged like a traveller in an old woman’s house in rocky Maghlora (p. 32).
People of Mughlora and its neighbours
The book ends its account of the Ghanial families around Bhimber with the notable men of Mughlora and four neighbouring villages, past and present (p. 352).
- Public life: the late Major General Abdul Rahman Khan, a former President of Azad Jammu and Kashmir; Major General Naseer Ahmad; Raja Allah Ditta Khan (“Raja A. D. Khan”), a retired Deputy Secretary of the Government of Pakistan; and the late Raja Shah Muhammad Khan, a forceful Muslim Conference worker all his life, who spent his last years in Bhimber.
- “Uncrowned kings”: before the creation of Pakistan, the book says, the late Raja Ghulam Muhammad Khan, known as Raja Nigah, Raja Bahadur Khan and Raja Jiwan Khan were masters of everything in Mughlora, its uncrowned kings.
- A royal bodyguard: the late Naib Subedar Raja Fazal Ahmad Khan, remembered as a bodyguard of Queen Victoria and of the Maharaja of Kashmir.
- Soldiers and officials: the late Lieutenant Raja Abdul Karim Khan; the late Naib Subedars Raja Khan Bahadur Khan, Raja Qurban Ali Khan and Raja Nazar Ali Khan; the late Inspector of Police Raja Khan Bahadur Khan; the late Numberdar Raja Ali Bahadur Khan; Naib Subedar Raja Pehlwan Khan; Subedars Raja Muhammad Sharif Khan and Raja Faiz Ahmad Khan; Subedar Major Raja Muhammad Razzaq Khan; the late Subedar Raja Mir Muhammad Khan; the late Subedar Major Raja Sawar Khan; and the late Patwari Raja Muhammad Ashraf Khan.
- Others: the late Mian Muhammad Ashraf, Raja Amir Muhammad Khan, Raja Faiz Talab Khan and Raja Bahadur Ali Khan, and Raja Nathu Khan.
Two more Mughlora men appear elsewhere in the book. Raja Inayat Khan, aged 77 at the time of writing, had served on the personal staff of the last two Viceroys of India, Lord Wavell and Lord Mountbatten, before returning to Pakistan in 1949. In Delhi he went looking for the Mohalla Shadi Khel of Baba Shadi Shaheed’s descendants and found it, and he narrates one of the book’s testimonies, from 1958 (pp. 95–96, 368–369). Raja Muhammad Irshad Khan of Mughlora sat on the Advisory Committee of the shrine (p. 187).
Salawin, Chak Khurd, Jand Pir and Randiyam
- Salawin: the late Maulvi Raja Muhammad Abdullah Khan; the late Maulvi Raja Nur-us-Samad Khan; Raja Muhammad Asif Khan, a former district councillor of Mirpur and a member of the shrine’s Advisory Committee; and Raja Abdul Rahman Khan, a headmaster.
- Chak Khurd: the late Raja Muhammad Sharif Khan, and Engineer Raja Muhammad Khalid Khan, Central Deputy Amir of the Jamaat-e-Islami, Azad Kashmir.
- Jand Pir: Raja Abdul Qayyum Khan, a former district councillor of Mirpur and an active local leader of the Muslim Conference.
- Randiyam (reading uncertain): Colonel (retired) Manzoor Husain, a former President of the City Muslim Conference, Bhimber, and a member of the shrine’s Advisory Committee.
Frequently asked questions
Where is Kot Chibban?
Kot Chibban, also called Dhandar Kot, is a village in Tehsil and District Bhimber, Azad Jammu and Kashmir, about eight miles east of Bhimber on the Bhimber–Iftikharabad–Chhamb road, the old road to Jammu. It lies next to the large village of Dhandar Kalan.
Why is the village called Kot Chibban?
Kot means a fort, and Chibban refers to the Chibs, the Ghanial Chib Rajputs who live there. The village stands on a high mound where an old fort once stood; by the 1990s only scattered traces remained, and the 1997 Chib history does not say who built it.
Where did Raja Chib Chand first settle?
At Mughlora, east of Bhimber, according to almost every account quoted in Raja Muhammad Iftikhar Ali Khan’s 1997 Chib history. The compiler dates his arrival to the first quarter of the fifteenth century; other accounts give dates from about 1230 to about 1400.
What village did Chib Chand found near Mughlora?
According to Mian Onkar Singh’s Tarikh-e-Chibhal, quoted in the book, Chib Chand founded a village east of Mughlora and named it Kangra, so that the memory of his homeland in the Kangra hills would stay fresh. The village still existed in the 1990s.
Who lives in Kot Chibban and Mughlora?
Both villages belong to the Ghanial got of the Chib Rajputs, descendants of Raja Ghanni Khan, grandson of Baba Shadi Shaheed. In the 1990s Kot Chibban’s best-known family included the industrialists Al-Haj Raja Muhammad Sharif Khan and Raja Muhammad Rafiq Khan, while Mughlora counted a former President of Azad Kashmir among its sons.
Sources
- Thakur Major Singh Chib, Tarikh-e-Rajgan-e-Bhimber wa Qaum-e-Chibhal (Tarikh-e-Chibhal; Urdu, c. 1926), pp. 9, 21–22.
- Raja Muhammad Iftikhar Ali Khan, Raja Shadab Khan alias Hazrat Baba Shadi Shaheed (Urdu, Barhang/Karachi, 1997), pp. 19–21, 26, 29–32, 45–46, 65–67, 95–96, 156–157, 165, 187, 347–352, 368–369, 426.
- Mian Onkar Singh Chib, Tarikh-e-Chibhal (2nd ed., Delhi, 1984), pp. 34–39, as quoted in the book, pp. 65–67.
- H. A. Rose, A Glossary of the Tribes and Castes of the Punjab and North-West Frontier Province, vol. II (1911), as translated in the book, p. 26.
- Sir Lepel Griffin and C. F. Massy, The Chiefs of the Punjab, as reproduced in the book, pp. 156–157.
- Settlement report of Gujrat District (1868), as quoted in the book, pp. 19–20.
- Raja Wilayat Khan “Khadim-e-Qaum” of Thotha Rai Bahadur, unpublished research on the Chibs, as summarised in the book, pp. 29–32.
This article is part of our series based on the 1997 Chib history; see the book, chapter by chapter. Spellings of names follow the book.
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