Nawab[1] Muhammad Hayat Khan CSI (c. 1833–1901)[2] was a Punjabi Muslim Landlord who served the Government of British India and rose to considerable distinction.

[4] At the end of the First Anglo-Sikh War, his father Karam Khan, cultivated a favourable relationship with officers of the British East India Company, appointed to administer the Punjab under Sir Henry Lawrence.

In June–July 1848, he accompanied British officer John Nicholson to the Margalla pass in a mission to capture a strategic tower near Taxila following an uprising of Sikh soldiers.

[14] In 1899, he was granted the personal title of Nawab in recognition of his long and particularly distinguished services and, in the words of an Englishman, '...a previously well-established Wah family [now] achieved new heights in the annals of British India'.

Muhammad Hyat Khan was a very close friend and confidant of the senior Muslim thinker, scholar, writer and educational reformer Sir Syed Ahmad Khan and remained very active under his guidance in the establishment of the Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College at Aligarh (later Aligarh Muslim University)[16] and indeed presided over the 1888, 1889 and 1890 annual sessions of the 'Muhammadan Educational Conference' initiated by Sir Syed.