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.
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
- The sister of the Afghan noble Haibat Khan Qandhari, or, in another account, a noble’s daughter
- Sons
- Three (Maulvi Zain-ul-Abidin) or two (Thakur Major Singh)
- Where
- Mohalla Shadi Khel, an old neighbourhood of Delhi; the book gives no street or landmark
- Evidence
- Four oral testimonies collected by the compiler of the 1997 Chib history
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.
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.
Sources differ
The bride: a noble’s daughter (the Thakur) or the sister of Haibat Khan Qandhari (the Maulvi, the compiler and the family account). The sons: two (the Thakur) or three (the Maulvi). The circumstances: forced by the Sultan (the Thakur), at the emperor’s wish (the family account), or for convenience during long stays at court (the Maulvi).
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.
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.
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.
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. 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. 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?
Maulvi Zain-ul-Abidin’s manuscript and the 1997 history 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. Thakur Major Singh’s Tarikh-e-Chibhal calls her the daughter of a noble whom the Sultan forced the raja to marry.
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.
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
- 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.
- Thakur Major Singh of Dewa Vatala, Tarikh-e-Chibhal (1983 Bikrami, c. 1926), pp. 26–34, as quoted in the above.
- Maulvi Zain-ul-Abidin Kohi Samahnavi, unpublished manuscript history of Chibhal, as quoted in the above.
- Sir Lepel Griffin and C. F. Massy, The Chiefs of the Punjab (Urdu version, Tazkira-e-Ruasa-e-Punjab), as quoted in the above.
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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