Ali Mohammed Khan

Nawab Muhammad Khan Bangash, ca 1730, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris

Ali Muhammad Khan(bf.1706 – September 15, 1748)^[1][2] was a rohilla (Pashtun highlanders-Basically belonging to Yousafzai Tribe) chief who founded the state of Rohilkhand in the northwestern region of the Uttar Pradesh state of India. He succeeded rohilla Sardar Daud Khan and helped develop Rohilkhand into a powerful nation, which became independent in 1721. Safdar Jang of Oudh informed the Mughal emperor of India Muhammad Shah^[3] (ruled 1719–1748) about Ali Mohammed Khan's supposed intentions to create his own Sultanate. Mohammed Shah sent an expedition against him, as a result of which he was imprisoned. Later he was pardoned and made governor of Sirhind. After Nadir Shah, the conqueror of Iran, took control of Kabul and sacked Delhi in 1739, Ali Mohammed Khan returned to his homeland and ruled the independent state of Rohilkhand until his death in 1748.

Descendants

Nawab^[4] Faizullah Khan (1730? – 1793) was the second son of Ali Muhammad Khan. He assumed rule of the Rohillas after his father's death. In 1774, during the invasion of Rohilkhand by the united armies of the Vizier Shuja-ud-Daula and the British East India Company, Faizullah Khan led a resistance in which many of the Rohilla's principal chiefs were killed. Escaping from the slaughter, Faizullah Khan "made his retreat good towards the mountains, with all his treasure." He collected the scattered remains of his countrymen; and as he was the eldest surviving son of Ali Mohammed Khan, he seems at length to have been generally acknowledged by his natural subjects the undoubted heir of his father's authority.^[5]

See also

• Rohilla

Notes