 | |
| Personal information | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1903 |
| Died | 25 April 1966(1966-04-25) (aged 62–63) |
| Chess career | |
| Country | British India (1903–1947) Pakistan (1947–1966) |
| Title | HonoraryGrandmaster (posthumous, 2024) |
Sultan Khan (Punjabi andUrdu:میاں سلطان خان, 1903 – 25 April 1966; often given the erroneous honorificMir Sultan Khan orMirMalik Sultan Khan[1]) was a chess player fromBritish India,[2][3][4] and later a citizen ofPakistan, who was the strongest Asian player of the early 1930s. The son of a Muslim landlord and preacher, Khan travelled with Colonel Nawab SirUmar Hayat Khan (Sir Umar), to Britain, where he took the chess world by storm. In an international chess career of less than five years (1929–33), he won theBritish Championship three times in four attempts (1929, 1932, 1933), and had tournament and match results that placed him among the top ten players in the world. Sir Umar then brought him back to his homeland, where he gave up chess and returned to cultivate his ancestral farmlands in the area which becamePakistan. He lived there before dying in his sixties in the city ofSargodha.David Hooper andKenneth Whyld have called him "perhaps the greatest natural player of modern times".[5] In 2024FIDE posthumously awarded him the title of HonoraryGrandmaster.[6]
Sultan Khan was born in 1903 inMitha Tiwana,Khushab,Sargodha (then British India, todayPakistan), to a MuslimAwan family ofpirs and landlords.[7] He learnedIndian chess from his father at the age of nine.[5][8] By the time he was 21 he was considered the strongest player in Punjab.[8] At that time, Sir Umar took him into his household with the idea of teaching him the European version of the game and introducing him to European masterchess.[5][8] In 1928, he won the all-India championship, scoring eight wins, onedraw, and no losses.[5][8][9]
In the spring of 1929, Sir Umar took him to London, where a training tournament was organized for his benefit.[5][10] Due to his inexperience and lack oftheoretical knowledge, he did poorly, tying for last place with H. G. Conde, behindWilliam Winter andFrederick Yates. After the tournament, Winter and Yates trained with him to help prepare him for theBritish Chess Championship to be held that summer.[10] To everyone's surprise, he won.[5][10][11] Soon afterwards, he went back to India with Sir Umar.[5][10]
Returning to Europe in May 1930, Sultan Khan began an international chess career that included wins over many of the world's leading players.[5] His best results were second toSavielly Tartakower atLiège 1930; third atHastings 1930–31 (+5−2=2) behind future World ChampionMax Euwe and former World ChampionJosé Raúl Capablanca; fourth at Hastings 1931–32; fourth atBern 1932 (+10−3=2); and a tie for third withIsaac Kashdan at London 1932, behind World ChampionAlexander Alekhine andSalo Flohr.[5] Sultan Khan again won the British Championship in 1932 and 1933.[5][12] In matches he narrowly defeated Tartakower in 1931 (+4−3=5) and narrowly lost to Flohr in 1932 (+1−2=3).[5][13]
Sultan Khan thrice playedfirst board for England atChess Olympiads. AtHamburg 1930, there was still no rule that teams must put their best player on the top board, and some teams, unconvinced of his strength, matched their second or even third-best player against him.[14] He scored nine wins, four draws, and four losses (64.7%).[15][16] AtPrague 1931, he faced a much stronger field.[17] He had an outstanding result, scoring eight wins, seven draws, and two losses (67.6%).[16][18] This included wins against Flohr andAkiba Rubinstein and draws with Alekhine, Kashdan,Ernst Grünfeld,Gideon Ståhlberg, andEfim Bogolyubov.[17] AtFolkestone 1933, he had his worst result, an even score, winning four games, drawing six, and losing four.[19][20] Once again, his opponents included the world's best players, such as Alekhine, Flohr, Kashdan, Tartakower, Grünfeld, Ståhlberg, andLajos Steiner.[21]
Reuben Fine wrote of him:[22]
The story of the Indian Sultan Khan turned out to be a most unusual one. The "Sultan" was not the term of status that we supposed it to be; it was merely a first name. He spoke English poorly and kept score in Hindustani. It was said that he could not even read the European notations.
After the tournament [the 1933 Folkestone Olympiad] the American team was invited to the home of Sultan Khan's master in London. When we were ushered in we were greeted by themaharajah with the remark, "It is an honor for you to be here; ordinarily I converse only with my greyhounds." Although he was aMohammedan, the maharajah had been granted special permission to drink intoxicating beverages, and he made liberal use of this dispensation. He presented us with a four-page printed biography telling of his life and exploits; so far as we could see his greatest achievement was to have been born a maharajah.
In December 1933, Sir Umar took him back to India.[5][10][23] In 1935, he won a match against V. K. Khadilkar, yielding just one draw in ten games.[10][24] The chess world never heard from him again.[5][10][23]
Miss Fatima, also a servant of Sir Umar, had won the British Ladies Championship in 1933 by a remarkable three-point margin, scoring ten wins, one draw, and no losses.[5][25] She said that Sultan Khan, upon his return to India, felt as though he had been freed from prison.[26] In the damp English climate, he had been continually afflicted withmalaria, colds, influenza, and throat infections, often arriving to play with his neck swathed in bandages.[10][24][27][28] Sir Umar died in 1944. Sultan Khan lived for the rest of his life with his family in Sargodha.[10][24][27] Ather Sultan, his eldest son, recalled that he would not coach his children at chess, telling them that they should do something more useful with their lives.[27]
Sultan Khan died oftuberculosis inSargodha, Pakistan (the same district where he had been born) on 25 April 1966.[10][24][29] Sultan Khan's son Ather Sultan is a graduate of the London School of Economics and retired as an Inspector General of Police from the Government of Pakistan.[citation needed] His granddaughter, Atiyab Sultan, holds a doctorate from the University of Cambridge.[citation needed]
In his brief but meteoric career, Sultan Khan rose to the top of the chess world, playing on even terms with the world's best players. ByArpad Elo's calculation, his playing strength during his five-year peak was equivalent to anElo rating of 2530.[30]
In 1950, when FIDE first awarded the titles of International Grandmaster andInternational Master, Sultan Khan had not played for 15 years. However, FIDE made a practice of awarding titles to some long-retired players who had distinguished careers earlier in their lives, such as Rubinstein andCarlos Torre.[31]
Hooper and Whyld write of him:[27]
When Sultan Khan first travelled to Europe his English was so rudimentary that he needed an interpreter. Unable to read or write, he never studied any books on the game, and he was put into the hands of trainers who were also his rivals in play. He never masteredopenings which, by nature empirical, cannot be learned by the application of common sense alone. Under these adverse circumstances, and having known international chess for a mere seven years, only half of which was spent in Europe, Sultan Khan nevertheless had few peers in themiddlegame, was among the world's best two or threeendgame players, and one of the world's best ten players. This achievement brought admiration from Capablanca who called him a genius, an accolade he rarely bestowed.
FIDE awarded the title of Honorary Grandmaster to Khan posthumously on February 2, 2024. FIDE presidentArkady Dvorkovich presented the award toCaretaker Prime Minister of PakistanAnwaar ul Haq Kakar.[32][33]
Sultan Khan is often accorded two other names, Mir Malik, but these are honorific. Mir is akin to addressing someone as 'sir'
He was born in Pakistan's side of the Punjab and died there as a Pakistan citizen due to tuberculosis in 1966.
Formally speaking, he was a British subject from 1903-1947 and then a proud Pakistani citizen till his demise in 1966. As such, he is a Pakistani asset and deserves an honourable mention in the sporting history of the country.
Formally speaking, Sultan Khan was aBritish subject for the first 44 years of his life (1903-47) and then a very proud Pakistani citizen from 1947 till his demise in 1966. He had no connection with the country that is now India other than for transit during travel or to play tournament matches, something that he also did in England, Czech republic, Switzerland, etc. That does not make him a citizen of these countries any more than it makes him an Indian. Moreover, given the tense political realities of the region, King should have been careful and sensitive before proclaiming him as such, as he has denied a dead man his conscious decision of statehood. Khan chose to be resident in Pakistan and contrary to King's assertion that he offered no political opinions, Khan was a patriot and believed firmly in Pakistan, a homeland created for South Asia's Muslim population in 1947.
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