[3] His family has historically claimed descent from Ali ar-Ridha, the eighth Imam,[4] through Najmuddin Kubra and the Arab Sufi Saiyed Bahaudin Shah.

She wrote the following in her eyewitness account of the First Afghan War titled "A Journal of the Disasters in Affghanistan, 1841-42": "I observe I have mentioned the Laird of Pughman,--a sobriquet applied to a good man, and a true one to the Shah and us.

His proper name was the Syud Mahommed Khan; and for the good service he did in the Kohistan with Sale's force he obtained the honorary title of Jan Fishan Khan,..."[9] Professor Wheeler M. Thackston,[10] a renowned linguist of Persian, Arabic, Syriac and Chaghatai has stated the following interpretation of the title Jan-Fishan: "The Persian compound jān-fishān (جان‌فشان) means self-sacrificing.

[12][13] One of Jan-Fishan Khan's descendants Saira Shah has correctly explained that this nom de guerre translates literally as "scatterer of souls".

[14] Having accompanied Sir Robert Sale's force on its march from Kabul to Jalalabad, Jan-Fishan Khan was honourably mentioned in dispatches for his assistance.

[6][15] 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, Saiyed Muhammed Jan Fishan Khan Saheb, took the side of the Government at once.

As a reward for subsequent help to the British in putting down the Indian mutiny, the title of Nawab Bahadur, and confiscated estates assessed at Rs.

[2] Statements attributed to Jan-Fishan Khan by Idries Shah in his books on Sufism include: "The candle is not there to illuminate itself", "You may follow one stream.