Mian Shah Din (2 April 1868 - 2 July 1918) was a Punjabi

lawyer A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solic ...

and

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

British India The provinces of India, earlier presidencies of British India and still earlier, presidency towns, were the administrative divisions of British governance on the Indian subcontinent. Collectively, they have been called British India. In one ...

. In October, 1908 he was the first Muslim appointed a

judge A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a panel of judges. A judge hears all the witnesses and any other evidence presented by the barristers or solicitors of the case, assesses the credibility an ...

of the Chief Court of the Punjab, now known as the

Lahore High Court The Lahore High Court () is based in Lahore, Pakistan. It was established as a high court on 21 March 1882. The Lahore High Court has jurisdiction over Punjab (Pakistan). The High Court's principal seat is in Lahore, but there are benches in th ...

.Charing Cross (Lahore) is where the elite dwelled
Dawn (newspaper), Published 20 February 2011, Retrieved 18 January 2019

Biography

Early life

Mian Shah Din was born in

Lahore Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is the capital of the province of Punjab where it is the largest city. ...

to the

Arain Arain (also known as Raeen) are a large Punjabi agricultural tribe with strong political identity and organisation, found mainly in the Pakistani provinces of Punjab and Sindh with a small population in parts of Indian Punjab, Uttar Pradesh a ...

Mian family of Baghbanpura Belonging to the Arain tribe of Punjab region, they are an aristocratic noble family originally from Areha Jericho Modern Palestine who entered in Indian Subcontinent with Umayyad Arab General Muhammad bin Qasim. The family has made great contrib ...

. He was educated at

Government College, Lahore The Government College University, Lahore (colloquially known as GCU), is a public research university located in Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. Opened as Government College, Lahore, in 1864, it became a university in 2002. Overview In 1864, Gov ...

and in 1887 left for

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

to study law. He was

called to the bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...

Middle Temple The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn an ...

in 1889. While in

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, he joined judge Abdul Rahim and others in the foundation of the London branch of the Anjuman-i-Islamiya, which was established on 10 November 1889. This was the first Muslim organisation in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

and Shah Din was elected its vice-president.

Career

He returned to Lahore in September 1890, and enrolled as an advocate at the Punjab Chief Court in January 1891. That same year he established the Young Men Mohammedan Association at Lahore. Two years later, he read out at the

All India Muhammadan Educational Conference The All India Muhammadan Educational Conference was an organisation promoting modern, liberal education for the Muslim community in India. It was founded by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan, also the founder of the Aligarh Muslim University. All India Mum ...

, a learned and thoughtful paper on “The Education of Musalmans in the Punjab”. This paper impressed

Syed Ahmad Khan Sir Syed Ahmad Khan KCSI (17 October 1817 – 27 March 1898; also Sayyid Ahmad Khan) was an Indian Muslim reformer, philosopher, and educationist in nineteenth-century British India. Though initially espousing Hindu-Muslim unity, he ...

so much that Shah Din was chosen, at the early age of twenty-six, to preside over the next session of the All-India Mohammedan Educational Conference in 1894. The following year he was made a fellow of the

University of the Punjab The University of the Punjab (Urdu, pnb, ), also referred to as Punjab University, is a public, research, coeducational higher education institution located in Lahore, Pakistan. Punjab University is the oldest public university in Pakistan. ...

and in 1896, he began working as a Trustee of Aligarh College. Mian Shah Din was one of the members of the Simla Deputation in 1906. After the

All-India Muslim League The All-India Muslim League (AIML) was a political party established in Dhaka in 1906 when a group of prominent Muslim politicians met the Viceroy of British India, Lord Minto, with the goal of securing Muslim interests on the Indian subcontin ...

was established, an active provincial branch was organised in the Punjab in November 1907 and Shah Din was elected its president. In October 1908, he was appointed the first Muslim Judge of the Chief Court of the Punjab, and was at that particular time the only sitting Muslim judge in any of the High Courts across British India. Under the

Minto-Morley Reforms The Indian Councils Act 1909, commonly known as the Morley–Minto or Minto–Morley Reforms, was an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that brought about a limited increase in the involvement of Indians in the governance of British In ...

, he was appointed along with

Mian Mohammad Shafi Sir Mian Muhammad Shafi, (10 March 1869 – 7 January 1932) was a lawyer and politician from British India.Umar Hayat Tiwana and Chaudhary Shahab-ud-din to the Punjab Council. These western educated leaders, drawn from the Muslim middle and upper classes, were marked by their progressive and liberal views. His appointment as a judge would however curtail his political ambitions and he resigned as president of the Punjabi branch of the All-India Muslim League. He nonetheless retained his passion for educational work and in 1913 he presided over the All India Muhammadan Educational Conference for a second time.S.M. Ikram, Indian Muslims and Partition of India, Atlantic Publishers & Dist, 1995 p.217

Death

Mian Shah Din died in 1918 at the age of fifty, and was eulogised by

Muhammad Iqbal Sir Muhammad Iqbal ( ur, ; 9 November 187721 April 1938), was a South Asian Muslim writer, philosopher, Quote: "In Persian, ... he published six volumes of mainly long poems between 1915 and 1936, ... more or less complete works on philoso ...

Humayun

His son also launched ''Humayun'', a monthly magazine in which Iqbal wrote the poem, “Humayun”.

Biography

Early life

Career

Death

Humayun

References

Further reading