PREDECESSORS AND SHORT HISTORY:
The history of the Hyats is buried in many tales, aptly
set against the backdrop of the historical Wah village,
from where the family originates. The Hyats of Wah 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 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. Estate holders were...
- Nawab KARAM HASSAN 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 married and had issue. He was murdered in
1848, by his brother Fatteh Khan (a Sikh supporter),
and his children were forced into exile.
- Nawab Muhammed Hyat Khan (qv)
- Nawabzada Bahadur Khan, Deputy Inspector of Police
in Rawalpindi Dist.
- Nawabzada Gulab Khan, married and had issue, two
sons.
- Nawab Saadullah Khan, he was granted the title
of Nawab
as a personal distinction for his services to the
Government, married and had issue. He died 1880.
- Nawab Muzaffar Ali Khan, born 1869, he served
as a senior government official during British
rule and on retirement, he was granted the title
of Nawab
as a personal distinction, married and had
issue. He died 1957.
- Mrs. Bilquis Sheikh (née Khan), born
12th December 1912 in Rawalpindi, a very well
known lady, who famously converted to
Christianity from Islam, married in Lahore,
Major-General K. M. Sheikh, and had issue, one
daughter, as well as an adopted son. She died
9th April 1997.
- Tooni Sheikh
- (A) Mahmud Sheikh
- Sardar Mazhar Ali Khan, a well-known
Pakistani journalist and editor of the
'Pakistan Times' and 'Viewpoint magazine';
member of the Pakistani Communist Party;
married Begum Tahira Mazhar Ali (née
Hyat), third daughter of Sir Sikandar Hyat
Khan (see below), and had issue. He died 1995.
- 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.
- Tousif Ali [Mrs. Tousif Hyat], married
Kamal Hyat (see below), and has issue.
 Nawab MUHAMMED HYAT 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 further issue, one son,
by an Oad woman. He died 1901.
- Nawabzada Aslam Hayat Khan (qv)
- Nawabzada Sardar Mahmood Hyat Khan, married and
had issue, descendants living in Pakistan and
elsewhere.
- Sardar Ghairat Hyat Khan, died as a young man sp.
- Nawab Bahadur Sir Liaqat Hyat 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 Afzal Hyat Khan (by
Ashraf Begum), married 1stly, Begum Kishwer
Sultana, married 2ndly (his cousin, see below), Sardarni Talal
Khatoon, born 1917, died 1984, daughter of Capt.
Sardar Sir Sikander Hyat Khan, and his first wife,
Zubaida Khatoon, and had issue, two sons and one
daughter.
- Sardar Mohsin Hyat Khan (by Begum Kishwer
Sultana), married Nadine Khanum, and had issue,
three children.
- Omer Hyat Khan
- Sabrina Hyat Khan (Mrs. Sabrina Aftab)
- Taimur Hyat Khan
- Sardar Ahsan Hyatt Khan (by Begum Kishwer
Sultana), married Begum Ishrat Hyat, and had
issue, three children.
- Zahid Hyatt Khan, married and has issue,
three children.
- Aliza Hyatt Khan
- Alisha Hyatt Khan
- Ali Hyatt Khan
- Sanam Hyatt Khan (Mrs. Sanam Thariani),
married and has issue, two children.
- Sasha Thariani
- Maya Thariani
- Rohail Hyatt Khan, married and has issue,
three children.
- Sheryar Hyatt
- Charmaine Hyatt
- Danyal Hyatt
- Nageen Hyat (by Talal
Khatoon), married (her second cousin), Sardar
Khawar Hyat Khan, son of Brigadier Sardar Azmat
Hyat Khan, and has issue (see below).
- 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)
- Sardar Asif Hyat Khan (by
Sharif Begum), married 1stly (his cousin),
Sardarni Talat Khatoon, daughter of Capt. Sardar
Sir Sikander Hyat Khan (see below),
married 2ndly, Veera, and had issue.
- Sardar Kaiser Hayat (by Talat Khatoon),
married and has issue.
- Hector Iskander Hayat
- Yasser Alexander Hayat Khan
- Jabran Antonius Hayat
- Sardar Kamal Hyat (by Talat Khatoon), married
Tousif Ali, daughter of Sardar Mazhar Ali Khan,
and his wife, Begum Tahira Mazhar Ali Khan (see
below), and has issue.
- Kamila Hyat
- Taimoor Hyat Khan, born February 1976.
- Safina Samiuddin (by Veera)
- Nishat Hyat (by 2nd marriage), married Herbert
Feldman.
- Sardar Arif Hyat (by Shamshad), born 1927, died
1984.
- Sardar Asad Hyat (by Shamshad), married and has
issue, one daughter.
- Samina Hyat (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 Hyat (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 Hyat (by 4th marriage) (India)
 Capt. Sardar Sir Sikander
Hyat 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, Begum Zubaida Khatun, died
1919, elder daughter of Mir Obaidullah, a prominent
Kashmiri merchant settled in Amritsar, she had
issue, one son and two daughters, married 2ndly,
April 1920, Begum Aminah Khatun, younger daughter of
Mir Obaidullah, married 3rdly, Sarda Bibi; born of a
humble background, married (a), Mussarat Khatun,
daughter of Mir Maqbool of Amritsar, and had issue,
ten 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.
- Zubaida Hayat (by Mussarat Khatun), she died
unmarried in 2007.
- Begum 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 Shauket Hyat Khan (by Zubaida
Khatun), born 1915, a prominent Muslim
League leader and a former Pakistan M.L.A. and
Minister; married 25th December 1942 (his cousin),
Begum Mussaret Sultana, and had issue, two sons
and six daughters. He died 1998.
- Sardar Sikander Hyat Khan, married 1stly,
Samina, married 2ndly, Ayesha, and has issue, by
second wife, one son and one daughter.
- Mohammed Ali Hyat
- Zainab Hyat
- Sardar Maqbool Hyat Khan, married Zara, and
has issue, one son and two daughters.
- Noreen Hyat
- Anum Hyat
- Shahmir Hyat Khan
- Zubeida Hyat
- Farhana Hyat, married (div.), Saquib Hameed,
and has issue, two sons. (Karachi,
Pakistan)
- Shehryar Hameed, married Uzaira.
- Shehzad Hameed, married Maliha.
- Naureen Hyat
- Asma Hyat, married Ch. Khurram Khan. and has
issue, four sons.
- Kamil Khan, married Farheen Khan.
- Yasir Khan, married Dania Habib.
- Adil Khan
- Momin Khan, married Sara Kamal.
- Lalarukh Hyat, married, Aslam Hayat Qureshi. (Islamabad,
Pakistan)
- Uzma Hyat, married Iskander Bawkher, and has
issue, one son and one daughter.
- Zuhare Bawkher
- Sahar Bawkher
- Begum Tallat Hyat (by
Zubaida Khatun), born 1917, married 1stly (her
cousin), Sardar Asif Hyat Khan (see above), married 2ndly (her
cousin), Sardar Afzal Hyat Khan (see above), and had issue. She
died 1984.
- Brig. Sardar Azmat Hyat 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 1stly, Begum Khurshid Jehan Ara Azmat from
the family of Hakeem Ahmad Shujah of Lahore, a
prominent family of mystics, scholars and
philosophers, married 2ndly, Tasneem Azmat from
Sialkot, Punjab, and had issue, seven children. He
died 1981.
- Sardar Yawar Hyat Khan B.A., born 1943 in
Lahore, he is an Award-winning TV director and
producer, educated at Forman Christian College,
Lahore, Pakistan (B.A.); one of the
founding-directors of Pakistan Tele Vision (PTV)
in 1964; married 1969 in Lahore, firstly,
Sardarni Rakshanda Khan, married 2ndly, Sardarni
Nasreen Khan, and has issue.
- Zaigham Ali Hyat Khan (by Sardarni
Rakshanda)
- Yaser Ali Hyat Khan (by Sardarni Rakshanda)
- Tariq Ali Hyat Khan (by Sardarni Nasreen)
- Tahira Khan (by Sardarni Nasreen)
- Namwar Khan (by Sardarni Nasreen)
- Hajrah Khan (by Sardarni Nasreen)
- Mrs. S. Javed Salim Khan, born 1946, married
Khan Sahib Javed Salim Khan of Dheri Talokar,
and has issue.
- Sardar Khawar Hyat Khan,
married (his second cousin), Nageen Hyat (see above), daughter of Sardar
Afzal Hyat Khan, and his second wife, Talal
Khatoon, and has issue.
- Roxana Hyat Khan [Mrs. Roxana Farrakh Khan],
married Lt.-Gen. (ret'd.) Choudhry Farrakh Khan,
from a Bhatti Rajput family of Attock district,
Punjab, former Chief of General Staff, Pakistan
Army, and has issue.
- Mrs. Zeb Amin, married Colonel Umayr
Amin, FFR, Pakistan Army.
- Mrs. Shazia Shuaib, married M.
Shuiab, Superindentent of Police.
- Choudhry Fahad Khan, presently (2011)
working as the Senior Vice-President Bank
Alfalah, Pakistan; married and has
issue.
- Choudhry Saad Khan, born 11th May
1979.
- Tabassam Hyat Khan [Mrs. Tabassam Moinuddin],
born 1952, married 1970, Pirzada Badar Moinuddin
Chishti, of the family of the Sufi Saint Hazrat
Sheikh Baba Faridudin Masud Ganj-Shakar, of
Pakpattan, and has issue.
- Ali Moinuddin Chishti, living and
working in Canada.
- Raza Moinuddin Chishti, born 15th
August 1976 in Lahore, married 2004, Dr
Rabia Moinuddin, and has issue, one
daughter.
- Hamza Moinuddin Chishti, presently
(2011) working as a banker in Lahore.
- Sardar Amir Hyat (U.S.A.)
- Amna Hyat, married (div.). (Lahore,
Pakistan)
- Tahira Hyat [Begum Tahira Mazhar Ali Khan] (by
Sarda Bibi), born 1925, educated at Queen Mary
School, Lahore; married Sardar Mazhar Ali Khan, a
paternal second cousin and son of Nawab Muzaffar
Ali Khan, and had issue (see above).
- Ismat Hyat (by Sarda Bibi)
- Sardar Riffat Hyat (by Sarda Bibi)
- Sardar Izzat Hyat (by Sarda Bibi)
- Zahida Hayat (by Sarda Bibi), a published
Punjabi Poet under the name of Zarafa, she died
2010.
- Sardar Ghairat Hyat (by Sarda Bibi), married and
had issue.
- Sardar Barkat Ali (by an unrecognized liaison),
married (his cousin), Mahmooda Begum, and had issue,
two sons and two daughters.
- Begum Nasreen Nizam Shahi, married and has
issue, one son and three daughters.
- Sardar Farrukh Ali, married and has issue, three
children.
- Sardar Nadeem Ali
- Humaira Ali, mother of Arif and Saira
Hyat-Malik.
- Begum Tasneem Yahya Effendi, mother of two sons,
Ahad and Ali.
- Sardar Farooq Ali, married Durdana Aleem, and
has issue, three children.
- Faisal Ali
- Saleha Ali
- Dr. Salma Ali
- Nawab ASLAM HYAT KHAN, Chief/Head of the Wah
family 1901/1924, born 1885, married and had issue,
descendants living in Pakistan and some in the U.S.A.
He died 1924.
- Nawabzada Masood Hyat Khan, born 1915, married and
had issue. He died 1955.
- Nawabzada Saleem Hyat Khan, born 1936, married
and had issue, two sons and a daughter. He died
1962.
- Nawabzada Muazzam Hyat Khan, born 1956,
married into the Gakkhar Raja family of Khanpur
jagir, in nearby Hazara region of NWFP, and had
issue, two sons and two daughters. He died 1990.
- Sardar Yusuf Hyat Khan, born 29th September
1960, educated in the U.S.A. (B.B.A.); presently
living and working in the USA; married 1994 in
Wah, Northern Punjab, Pakistan, Mrs. Blair Hyat
Khan, and has issue, two daughters. (U.S.A.)
The generous help of Dr. Omer Salim Khan; Former
university professor; Director, the Sophia Institute,
Pakistan is gratefully acknowledged, June 2008.
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