Life
In the First Anglo-Afghan War, Sayyid Muhammed Shah, also known to the British as the "Laird of Pughman", supported Shah Shuja and the British Army against other Afghan forces, apparently in order to honour a family allegiance to Shah Shuja. In 1840, he was awarded the title "Jan-Fishan Khan" by Shah Shuja for his support. According to writer James Moore, the title means "The Zealot" (however this is a misunderstanding of the meaning of the Persian idiom which can mean "zealous" in the sense of ‘ready to sacrifice one's life’, as it is defined in Steingass). One of Jan-Fishan Khan's descendants Saira Shah has correctly explained that this nom de guerre translates literally as "scatterer of souls". Shah recounts that the appellation has a double meaning: first, that of a warlord scattering the souls of his enemies, and second, one based on a Sufi couplet describing the supplicant's devotion to God:
If I had a thousand lives
I would scatter them all at your blessed feet.
Having accompanied Sir Robert Sale’s force on its march from Kabul to Jalalabad, Jan-Fishan Khan was honourably mentioned in despatches for his assistance. In the Indian Rebellion of 1857, Jan-Fishan Khan again helped the British to quell the mutiny. Lethbridge (1893) gives the following summary in The Golden Book of India, a genealogical and biographical source:
"At the time of the Mutiny, the head of the family, Sayyid Muhammed Jan Fishan Khan Saheb, took the side of the Government at once. When the Mutiny occurred at Meerut, he raised a body of horse, consisting of his followers and dependents, and officered by himself and his relatives; accompanied General Wilson's force to the Hindan; was present in both actions, and thence to Delhi, where he remained with the headquarters camp until the city was taken, when his men were employed to keep order in Delhi.
Exiled from Kabul ever since the British retreat from Afghanistan, Jan-Fishan Khan eventually came to settle in Sardhana, a town near Meerut in the North-Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, and was given the hereditary title of nawab in recognition of his services. He had lost several of his sons in the fighting.
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