Ilahi Bakhsh was a Punjabi Muslim general who served in the Sikh Khalsa Fauj for over forty years and was regarded as one of the best artillery officers.

[3] Following a re-organization of the army in 1810, Bakhsh was transferred to a new artillery corps, the Fauj-i-Khas, led by Mian Ghaus Khan.

[7] In 1831 at the Ropar meeting between Maharaja Ranjit Singh and Lord William Bentinck, the Governor-General of India, he arranged a demonstration of his artillery as well as of his own firing skill in the course of evening entertainments and the review of troops.

[12] The defection of Bakhsh dealt a blow to the Sikh artillery and they capitulated to the British the following month at Gujrat.

Sikander succeeded his father as Chief of the Artillery and later inherited substantial properties in Lahore.