Sa'adullah Khan

Sa'adullah Khan Chinioti (c. 1591 – April 1656), known by the scholarly title Allami, was a scholar and official of the Mughal Empire who served as grand vizier and Vakil-i-Mutlaq of Shah Jahan from 1645 until his death ^{1 2}. He rose from a cultivator's family to the highest office held by a non-royal in the empire ¹.

He was born at Chiniot, in the Lahore Subah, into a Punjabi Jat family of the Thahim clan; his father Amir Bakhsh was a cultivator ¹. In his youth he studied at Lahore under Shaykh Kamal al-Din, taught for a while at the madrasa of Wazir Khan, and then went to Delhi, where he became tutor to the children of Asaf Khan ^{1 3}. He entered the imperial bureaucracy in December 1641 and climbed steadily — examiner of petitions, superintendent of the royal apartments, Mir-i-Saman in 1643, Diwan-i-Khalisa in 1645 — until, after forty-six days in the last post, Shah Jahan made him grand vizier in place of Islam Khan, his mansab ultimately reaching 7000 zat and 7000 sowar, the highest of any non-royal ¹.

A year after his appointment he was sent to Balkh, where he settled the country's administration and revenue in twenty-two days after Prince Murad Baksh was relieved of command, saving the Mughals from disaster there ^{1 2}. From 1649 to 1653 he was involved in the sieges of Kandahar alongside Aurangzeb, and in 1654 he besieged the Chittor Fort in Mewar on the emperor's orders ¹. European travellers praised him: Manucci called him a man esteemed by the king and the whole court, and Bernier recorded that the Mughals considered him the most accomplished statesman in Asia ¹. He remained grand vizier until his death in April 1656, and Shah Jahan mourned him publicly ³.