PREDECESSORS AND SHORT HISTORY:
The history
of the Hayats is buried in many tales, aptly set against the backdrop
of
the historical Wah village, from where the family originates. The Wah
Hayats are Khattars by descent i.e. of indigenous North Punjabi stock.
At the time of Mahmud of Ghazni’s invasions, the clan was mostly
residing in the Bagh Nilab area, in the vicinity of the river Indus.
They were upper class Kshtriya Hindus, and their main leader at the
time was one ‘Kaidu’ or ‘Khattar’ who converted to Islam at that time.
He was rewarded for his loyalty to his Afghan masters with the title of
Khattar Khan.Wah itself was created much later when the
Mughul
Emperor Shah Jehan in 1645 was marching towards Kabul. Tradition holds
that the name of the village, "wah', originates in the Emperor's
spontaneous
word of praise (wow) as he spotted the humble setting then known as
Jalalsar.
Rulers were...
- Nawab KARAM KHAN, a
leading Khattar Chief, in around 1848, when the Punjab was under Sikh
Rule, and the British were fighting the
Sikh War, he threw in
his lot with John Nicholson against the Sikhs. He was murdered by his
brother Fatteh Khan (a Sikh supporter), and his children were forced
into exile; he married and had issue.
- Nawab MUHAMMED HAYAT KHAN (qv)
- Nawabzada Bahadur Khan, Deputy Inspector of Police in
Rawalpindi Dist.
- Nawab MUHAMMED HAYAT KHAN C.S.I. -/1901, born
1833/1834, his cause was taken up by the British and they effected the
family’s
restoration to their patrimony and they undertook to educate Muhammad
Hyat; he was taken on as a native orderly by Nicholson in 1851-1852 who
later made him his official Persian interpreter; appointed as an
officer under John Nicholson,
with whom he ramained until the latters death in 1857, he played a
significant
part in helping Nicholson overcome rebellious Afghan chiefs in
Peshawar,
by raising a strong group of Afridis; he was initially appointed a
Tahsildar (a junior revenue officer) in the
Punjab and later shifted to the Frontier, serving in Kohat and later,
Bannu (by which time he was an Extra Asst. Commissioner and Magistrate
1861).
In 1865, he was sent on a mission to Kabul and wrote the famous Hyat
I
Afghan (Persian), translated as "A Report on Afghanistan and its
Inhabitants" by H.B. Priestley in 1874. Between 1869-1879, he served as
Asst. Political Agent at Kurram, on the Frontier;
and was later one of the native assistants to Gen. Lord Roberts (of
Kandahar) during the Afghan War of 1879; he was later posted to the
Punjab where he remained a Sessions Judge, and later Member (Revenue)
on the Punjab Council. He was granted extensive Jagirs in various parts
of the Punjab, including his main seat, the Wah Revenue Estate or
Jagir, also granted the title of Nawab [cr.1899]; married Zainab
Khatun, daughter of Ghulam
Jilani, Prime Minister of Kapurthala State; and had issue, five sons,
as well as a son by a serving woman (the son was not publicly
acknowledged and was not included in the Wah succession). He died 1901.
- Nawabzada ASLAM HAYAT KHAN (qv)
- Sardar Mahmood Hayat Khan, married and had issue,
descendants living in Pakistan and elsewhere.
- Sardar Ghairat Hayat Khan, died as a young man sp.
- Nawab Bahadur Sir Liaqat Hayat Khan, born 1st February
1887, Nawab
[cr.1928],
Kt. [cr.1932]; he began his career as a police official in Patiala,
rose to be Minister for Interior and then Prime Minister of Patiala
State; married 1stly,
Ashraf Begum of Poonch in Kashmir, married 2ndly, an Indian Christian
lady; married 3rdly, Shamshad, daughter of the Prime Minister of
Patiala,
married 4thly, a Punjabi Hindu lady, and
had issue.
- Sardar Asif Hayat Khan (by Ashraf Begum)
- Sardar Afzal Hayat Khan (by Ashraf Begum)
- Sadiqah Khatun (by Ashraf Begum), married Nawab Ashiq
Hussain Qureshi,
born
1900, son of Riaz
Hussain Qureshi, and had issue.
- Nawabzada Sadiq Hussain Qureshi,
married
and had issue.
- Sahibzada Riaz Hussain Qureshi,
married
Zarmina
Durrani (see above)
- Nawabzada Nasim Hussain Qureshi
- Safiyah Khatun (by Ashraf Begum)
- Sakinah Khatun (by Ashraf Begum)
- Sughran Khatun (by Ashraf Begum)
- Nishat Hayat (by 2nd marriage), married Herbert Feldman.
- Sardar Arif Hyat (by Shamshad), born 1927, died 1984.
- Sardar Asad Hayat (by Shamshad)
- Samina Hayat (by Shamshad), born about 1935, married
1stly (div.),
aged 15,
Nawabzada Hebat
Ali
Khan of Tonk, eldest of the seven sons of the Nawab of Tonk, married
2ndly, Shakirullah Durrani, Governor of the State Bank of Pakistan, and
had issue by both husbands.
- Rubina Begum (by 1st marriage),
born
about 1951, married
1968, Kemal (a commercial airplane pilot).
- Tehmina Durrani, born 18th February
1953, author of My
Feudal Lord.
- Asim Durrani
- Minoo Durrani
- Zarmina Durrani, married Sahibzada
Riaz
Hussain
Qureishi, son of Nawabzada
Sadiq Hussain Qureishi
- Adila Durrani, born about 1966.
- Samar Hayat (by Shamshad), married Akhtar Mirza, a
businessman, son of Khan Bahadur Mirza Mohammad Din, a successful
engineer and businessman of pre-partition India and also the founder of
Anjuman-e-Mughalia of India, a movement for the
re-awakening of the Mughals in India who survived British persecution
during the Raj period; and has issue, three children.
- Mehreen Mirza, married to a banker living in
Dubai, and has issue, three children.
- M. Omar Mirza, a banker in Dubai, married and
has issue, three children.
- Nageen Mirza, married and has issue, one son.
- Sardar Anees Hayat (by 4th marriage) (India)
 Capt.
Sardar Sir Sikander Hayat Khan, born 5th June
1892 in Multan,
Western Punjab, educated at M.A.O. College, Aligarh and University
College,
London; K.B.E., K.B. [cr.1933], D.O.L., recalled from London on the
death of his elder brother and went into business on his own account,
refusing offers to join junior governmental positions; he was
successful in his projects, including the renowned ‘Wah Tea Estate’,
Palampur, Kangra Valley, India, and the Lahore-Amritsar Railway, of
which he remained a director; Asst. Recruiting Officer in the Punjab
during WWI and received commendations for his efforts, as a result he
became the first native Indian officer to obtain a King’s Commission
1918; served in Military Intelligence in Peshawar, during the Afghan
War of 1919-1921; he joined the Punjab Unionist Party and participated
in local
bodies/grassroots elections and remained a member and chairperson of
the Hasan Abdal area council; served as M.L.C. (Punjab) 1920/-; and was
the first Indian to be appointed Acting Governor of the Punjab, in 1932
and 1934, on two separate occasions; acting
Chief Minister of Bahawalpur 1928; appointed a Revenue Member of
the Punjab Government in 1929, Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of
India
1934/35, he was also the first native Indian to serve as Chairman of
the Indian Cricket Board (he was very fond of cricket and hockey and
had won college blues in both sports at Aligarh); leader of the
Unionist Party 1936/1942, Governor of the Punjab
1937/1942; he was especially active in recruitment of troops for the
war effort during WWII, and met Winston Churchill a number of times in
Egypt and North Africa, where Indian Punjabi troops were mostly
serving; he undertook many important reforms in the Punjab, including
those of revenue, agriculture and others; he married 1stly, 12th May
1912, Zubaida Khatun, died 1919,
elder daughter
of Mir Obaidullah, a prominent Kashmiri merchant settled in Amritsar,
married 2ndly, April 1920, Aminah Khatun,
younger daughter of Mir Obaidullah, married 3rdly, Sarda Bibi; born of
a very humble background, and had
issue, 10 children. He died
26th December 1942 at Lahore of a sudden heart attack, after the
conclusion of the wedding festivities of three of his children, and was
buried outside the old Badshahi Mosque, on the opposite side from
Iqbal, the National Poet of Pakistan.
- Mahmooda Salim Khan (by Zubaida Khatun), born 1913,
married Khan Sahib
Abdel Salim Khan Tarin of Dheri
Talokar, and had issue. She died 2007.
- Khan Sahib Javed Salim Khan of Dheri Talokar,
married Mrs. S. Javed Salim Khan, born 1946, and has issue (see below).
- Major Sardar Shaukat Hayat Khan (by Zubaida Khatun),
born 1915, a
prominent Muslim League leader and a former Pakistan M.L.A. and
Minister; married 25th December 1942, and had issue. He died 1998.
- Sardar Sikander Hayat
- Sardar Maqbool Hayat
- Talat Hayat (by Zubaida Khatun), born 1917, died 1984.
- Brig. Sardar Azmat Hayat Khan (by Aminah Khatun), born
1921, he was a war hero during World War II (Burma, D.S.O.); and was
one of the founders and senior members of the early Pakistan Army; he
married into the family of Hakeem Ahmad Shujah of Lahore, a prominent
family of mystics, scholars and philosophers, and
had issue, five children. He died 1981.
- Mrs. S. Javed Salim Khan, born 1946, married Khan
Sahib Javed
Salim Khan of Dheri Talokar, and
has issue.
- Tahira Hayat [Begum Tahira Mazhar Ali Khan] (by Sarda
Bibi), born
1925, educated at Queen Mary School, Lahore; married Sardar Mazhar
Ali Khan, died 1993, a paternal second cousin and son of Nawab Muzaffar
Ali Khan, and had issue.
- Sardar Tariq Ali, born 21st October 1943 in
Lahore, educated at Punjab University and Exeter College, Oxford;
author of The Book of Saladin (1998); The Stone Woman
(2000) and others; married 2ndly, Susan Watkins, and has issue.
- Natasha Ali (by 1st marriage)
- Sardar Chengiz Ali (by Susan)
- Aisha Ali (by Susan)
- Maher Ali, journalist.
- Ismat Hayat (by Sarda Bibi)
- Sardar Riffat Hayat (by Sarda Bibi)
- Sardar Izzat Hayat (by Sarda Bibi)
- Zarafa Hayat (by Sarda Bibi)
- Sardar Ghairat Hyat (by Sarda Bibi)
- Nawabzada ASLAM HAYAT KHAN
1901/-, chief/head of the Wah
family, married and had issue, descendants living in Pakistan and some
in the USA.
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