Birth date: 
Death date: 
Birth town: 

Khanzada Mirza Khan Abdul Rahim Khan-e-Khana also known as Rahim, was a composer in the times of Mughal emperor Akbar, and one of his main nine ministers (Diwan) in his court, also known as the Navaratnas; he is most known for his Hindi couplets and his books on Astrology. The village of Khankhana, named after him, is located in the Nawanshahr district of the state of Punjab in northwest India.


Mirza Abdul Rahim Khan-i-Khana was the son of Akbar’s trusted caretaker, Bairam Khan who had Turkic ancestry. When Humayun returned to India, from his exile, he is asked the nobles in court to forge matrimonial alliances with various zamindars, feudal lords, across the nation. While Humayun himself married the elder daughter of Jamal Khan of Mewat (present Mewat district of Haryana), he asked Bairam to marry the younger daughter.

Gazetteer of Ulwur states:
Soon after Babar's death, his successor, Humayun, was in A.D. 1540 supplanted by the Pathan Sher Shah Suri, who, in A.D. 1545, was followed by Islam Shah. During the reign of the latter a battle was fought and lost by the Emperor's troops at Firozpur, in Mewat, on which, however, Islam Shah did not loose his hold. Adil Shah, the third of the Pathan interlopers, who succeeded in A.D. 1552, had to contend for the empire with the returned Humayun.

In these struggles for the restoration of Babar's dynasty Khanzadas apparently do not figure at all. Humayun seems to have conciliated them by marrying the elder daughter of Jamal Khan, nephew of Babar's opponent, Hasan Khan, and by causing his great minister, Bairam Khan, to marry a younger daughter of the same Mewatti.

Maternal Lineage

Khanzadahs,the royal family of Muslim Jadon (also spelt as Jadaun) Rajputs, accepted Islam on their association with the Sufi saints.Khanzadah, the Persian form of the Rajputana word 'Rajput', is the title of the great representatives of the ancient Jadubansi royal Rajput family, descendants of Krishna and therefore of Lunar Dynasty. They are the Mewatti Chiefs of the Persian historians, who were the representatives of the ancient Lords of Mewat.

Khanzadah, or "the son of a Khan" is precisely the Muslim equivalent to the Hindu Rajput or "son of a Raja " ...
—From Punjab Castes by Denzil Ibbetson


After Bairam Khan was murdered in Patan, Gujarat, his wife and young Rahim were brought safely to Ahmedabad, from they brought to Delhi and presented to the royal courts of Akbar, who gave him the title of 'Mirza Khan', and subsequently married him to Mah Banu, sister of Mirza Aziz Kokah, son of Ataga Khan, a noted Mughal noble.

Later, Bairam Khan's wife became the second wife of Akbar, which made Abdul Rahim Khan-e-Khan his stepson, and later he became one of his nine prominent ministers, the Navaratnas, or nine gems.

Although a Muslim by birth, Rahim was a devotee of Lord Krishna and wrote poetry dedicated to him. He was also an avid Astrolger, and the writer if two important works in Astrology Khet Kautukam and Dwawishd Yogavali are still popular.

He is well known for his strange manner of giving alms to the poor. He never looked at the person he was giving alms to, keeping his gaze downwards in all humility. When Tulsidas heard about Rahim's strange method of giving alms, he promptly wrote a couplet and sent it to Rahim:-



"The Giver is someone else, giving day and night. So they won't give me the credit, I lower my eyes."


His tomb is situated in Nizamuddin on the Mathura road ahead of Humayun's Tomb in New Delhi, it was built by him for his wife in 1598, and later he was himself buried in it in 1627. Later, in 1753-4, marble and sandstone from this tomb was used for the making of Safdarjung's Tomb, also in New Delhi.

Popular Couplets of Rahim









Abdul Rahim Khan-I-khana's Works:

Various 'doha' (Hindi Couplets)
Kheta Kautukama (Astrology Treatise)
Dwawishd Yogavali (Astrology Treatise)
Baburnama (Translate book of Babar's memory)



Poems by this Poet

No poems found.