{
 "id": "person/bismillah-khan",
 "class": "person",
 "slug": "bismillah-khan",
 "label": {
  "ar": "بسم الله خان",
  "en": "Bismillah Khan",
  "ur": "بسم اللہ خان"
 },
 "summary": {
  "ar": "عازف شهناي هندي (1916–2006)، وُلد باسم قمر الدين خان في دومراون بولاية بيهار لأسرة من عازفي البلاط، ورفع الشهناي من آلة احتفالية إلى منصة الحفلات، وعزف عند رفع علم الهند عند الحصن الأحمر في دلهي يوم الاستقلال (1947)، ونال بهارات راتنا (2001)، أعلى وسام مدني هندي.",
  "en": "Indian shehnai maestro (1916–2006), born Qamaruddin Khan at Dumraon in Bihar into a family of court musicians, who raised the shehnai from a ceremonial instrument to the concert stage, played at Delhi's Red Fort as India's flag was raised at independence in 1947, and received the Bharat Ratna (2001), India's highest civilian honour.",
  "ur": "بھارتی شہنائی نواز (1916–2006)، جو قمر الدین خان کے نام سے بیہار کے ڈومراؤں میں درباری موسیقاروں کے گھرانے میں پیدا ہوئے؛ انھوں نے شہنائی کو رسمی آلے سے کنسرٹ کے اسٹیج تک پہنچایا، 1947 میں یومِ آزادی پر دہلی کے لال قلعے میں عزف کیا اور بھارت رتن (2001) سے نوازے گئے۔"
 },
 "stub": false,
 "wings": [
  "people"
 ],
 "regions": [
  "south-asia"
 ],
 "periods": [],
 "tags": [],
 "aliases": [],
 "themes": [],
 "span": {
  "earliest": 1916.2165547547177,
  "latest": 2006.6386715674885
 },
 "display": {
  "start": {
   "edtf": "1916-03-21",
   "hijri": "1334",
   "calendar": "gregorian",
   "precision": "day",
   "status": "historical",
   "derived": true,
   "note": "Born on 21 March 1916 at Dumraon in Bihar, the second son of the court shehnai player Paigambar Bux Khan: the English, Arabic and Urdu articles and Wikidata agree. He was born Qamaruddin Khan and was renamed in infancy when his grandfather exclaimed 'Bismillah' over the newborn; Ustad is a title of honour, not a name, and is kept out of the name entries. Dumraon has no place entity, so no born_in edge is written. The Hijri year 1334 is a tabular conversion of the followed date, marked derived.",
   "sources": [
    "source/wikipedia-bismillah-khan-en",
    "source/wikipedia-bismillah-khan-ar",
    "source/wikipedia-bismillah-khan-ur",
    "source/wikidata-bismillah-khan"
   ]
  },
  "end": {
   "edtf": "2006-08-21",
   "hijri": "1427",
   "calendar": "gregorian",
   "precision": "day",
   "status": "historical",
   "derived": true,
   "note": "Died on 21 August 2006 at Varanasi, of a heart attack, aged ninety: the English, Arabic and Urdu articles, Wikidata, the BBC report and the Guardian obituary agree. India observed a day of mourning. Varanasi has no place entity, so no died_in edge is written. The Hijri year 1427 is a tabular conversion of the followed date, marked derived.",
   "sources": [
    "source/wikipedia-bismillah-khan-en",
    "source/wikipedia-bismillah-khan-ur",
    "source/wikidata-bismillah-khan",
    "source/bbc-bismillah-khan-2006",
    "source/guardian-bismillah-khan-obituary-2006"
   ]
  }
 },
 "data": {
  "names": [
   {
    "value": "Bismillah Khan",
    "kind": "full"
   },
   {
    "value": "Qamaruddin Khan",
    "kind": "full"
   }
  ],
  "gender": "male",
  "born": {
   "edtf": "1916-03-21",
   "hijri": "1334",
   "calendar": "gregorian",
   "precision": "day",
   "status": "historical",
   "derived": true,
   "note": "Born on 21 March 1916 at Dumraon in Bihar, the second son of the court shehnai player Paigambar Bux Khan: the English, Arabic and Urdu articles and Wikidata agree. He was born Qamaruddin Khan and was renamed in infancy when his grandfather exclaimed 'Bismillah' over the newborn; Ustad is a title of honour, not a name, and is kept out of the name entries. Dumraon has no place entity, so no born_in edge is written. The Hijri year 1334 is a tabular conversion of the followed date, marked derived.",
   "sources": [
    "source/wikipedia-bismillah-khan-en",
    "source/wikipedia-bismillah-khan-ar",
    "source/wikipedia-bismillah-khan-ur",
    "source/wikidata-bismillah-khan"
   ]
  },
  "died": {
   "edtf": "2006-08-21",
   "hijri": "1427",
   "calendar": "gregorian",
   "precision": "day",
   "status": "historical",
   "derived": true,
   "note": "Died on 21 August 2006 at Varanasi, of a heart attack, aged ninety: the English, Arabic and Urdu articles, Wikidata, the BBC report and the Guardian obituary agree. India observed a day of mourning. Varanasi has no place entity, so no died_in edge is written. The Hijri year 1427 is a tabular conversion of the followed date, marked derived.",
   "sources": [
    "source/wikipedia-bismillah-khan-en",
    "source/wikipedia-bismillah-khan-ur",
    "source/wikidata-bismillah-khan",
    "source/bbc-bismillah-khan-2006",
    "source/guardian-bismillah-khan-obituary-2006"
   ]
  },
  "roles": [
   "musician"
  ],
  "faith": [
   {
    "value": "unknown",
    "basis": "unknown",
    "note": "Settled unknown and FLAGGED for a founder ruling. That he was a devout Muslim is attested independently and repeatedly — the English biography, the BBC's report of his death and his Guardian obituary all describe him so, and he performed at Hindu and Muslim ceremonies alike and was held up as a symbol of religious harmony — but devotion attests no school. The Shia reading: Wikidata's item carries two religion values, Islam and Shia Islam, and the English article files him in its 'Indian Shia Muslims' category, and the description of him as a devout Shia is widespread in the biographical tradition. Those are, however, one structured-and-filing family; no second independent source naming a school for the man himself was verified at full text in this session. If the founder counts the structured value and the biographical tradition as two families, the settlement becomes shia-twelver on the documented basis under the lane's mapping rule, the Indian Shia context being unambiguous, and the mapping is stated here so the ruling can be made on the record as it stands.",
    "sources": [
     "source/wikipedia-bismillah-khan-en",
     "source/wikidata-bismillah-khan",
     "source/guardian-bismillah-khan-obituary-2006",
     "source/bbc-bismillah-khan-2006"
    ]
   }
  ],
  "sources": [
   "source/wikipedia-bismillah-khan-en",
   "source/wikipedia-bismillah-khan-ar",
   "source/wikipedia-bismillah-khan-ur",
   "source/wikidata-bismillah-khan",
   "source/guardian-bismillah-khan-obituary-2006",
   "source/bbc-bismillah-khan-2006"
  ],
  "external_ids": {
   "wikidata": "Q379707"
  },
  "provenance": {
   "layer": "own-research",
   "source": "English, Arabic and Urdu Wikipedia biographies of Bismillah Khan, the Wikidata item Q379707, the BBC News report of 21 August 2006 and Reginald Massey's Guardian obituary of 22 August 2006; the BBC and Guardian texts were read in full on the publishers' sites in this session, every Wikipedia and Wikidata revision id was fetched live from the MediaWiki API in this session and asserted before use, and the QID was grounded through the English article's page properties. Identity: the queue line's bearer is the Dumraon-born shehnai maestro (1916–2006) — not any other Khan. Existence checks by name fragments (bismillah, qamaruddin) and by QID across data/person on origin/main found no prior record for him. The queue's years (1916–2006) are confirmed to the day at both ends. Relations written: none — Dumraon and Varanasi have no place entities, and his father and uncle hold no records. His lifelong attachment to Banaras and the Ganges and his playing at the Kashi Vishwanath Temple are recorded as biography, never as faith evidence.",
   "generated_by": "Muse (Muse Spark 1.3)",
   "run": "century-additions-130"
  },
  "status": {
   "review": "published",
   "generated_by": "Muse (Muse Spark 1.3)"
  }
 },
 "prose": {
  "ar": {
   "sections": [],
   "frontmatter": {
    "id": "person/bismillah-khan",
    "lang": "ar",
    "source_lang": "ar",
    "translators": []
   },
   "updated": "2026-11-06"
  },
  "en": {
   "sections": [],
   "frontmatter": {
    "id": "person/bismillah-khan",
    "lang": "en",
    "source_lang": "ar",
    "translators": []
   },
   "updated": "2026-10-31"
  },
  "ur": {
   "sections": [],
   "frontmatter": {
    "id": "person/bismillah-khan",
    "lang": "ur",
    "source_lang": "ar",
    "translators": []
   },
   "updated": "2026-10-31"
  }
 },
 "degree": 0,
 "contemporaries": [
  "person/abdul-latif-chowdhury-fultali",
  "person/aden-adde",
  "person/ali-safi-golpaygani",
  "person/muazzez-ilmiye-cig",
  "person/muhammad-sarfaraz-khan-safdar",
  "person/naguib-mahfouz",
  "person/roger-garaudy",
  "person/serigne-saliou-mbacke",
  "person/tawhida-ben-cheikh",
  "person/zahir-shah",
  "person/halil-inalcik",
  "person/ahmed-ben-bella"
 ],
 "updated": "2026-10-31",
 "connections": [],
 "related": [],
 "license": {
  "prose": "CC BY-SA 4.0",
  "data": "CC0 1.0"
 }
}