Muhammad Akbar
Muhammad Akbar was born on March 20, 1910, in Miandam in the Swat hills, where Pashto was the language of the fields and paths and the Miangul rulers governed through local notables, customary law, and levies. His family were Sunni Muslims who kept ties to pirs and shrines. Qur’an verses were recited over the sick, and small folded papers with inked prayers were sewn into cloth and tied to a child’s arm.
His father, Haji Karim, farmed as a tenant and sharecropper. His mother, Bibi Shaista, ran the household: grinding grain, drying mulberries, keeping the hearth fed with brush and wood, and minding children while the men worked terraces. Akbar grew up in a nuclear household that still sat inside a village web of family, debt, and obligation. He was the fourth child. Rahim Gul, the eldest brother, took on the tone of a future household head early, speaking for the family with landlords’ men. Two older sisters, Bibi Amina and Bibi Shukria, carried him, watched him, and pushed him away from the cooking fire when he crawled too near. A younger sister, Bibi Gulalai, arrived in 1911.
Death visited the home while Akbar was still small. An infant brother, Jan Muhammad, died in 1912. Two years later an infant sister, Bibi Zarmina, followed; then Sultan in 1916. Each time Bibi Shaista went with other women to a local shrine, took a vow, and left what she could: a handful of grain, a strip of cloth, a little oil for the lamp. Mullah Dost, an elder linked to the shrine world, wrote ta’wiz and told her where to tie them. The living children learned to drink water that had been breathed over with prayers.
Akbar was short for a man, compact, and quick with his hands. He did not talk much, even as a boy. When men gathered to argue about water turns or boundary stones, he stayed behind his brother and watched faces. He remembered words and promises better than many adults. At harvest he learned how shares were measured—how a basket could be shaken, how a mound could be pressed—and he refused to add his own tricks. Rahim Gul teased him for it, then used him as a witness when disputes flared. Bibi Shukria, close in age, treated him as a partner in childhood. They shared roasted corn in late summer and laughed when goats stole from the threshing floor.
Akbar never learned to read. He recognized a few marks on paper and knew the sound of prayers, but accounts and letters belonged to other hands. His work was physical and local: herding on steep ground, cutting fodder, carrying manure, digging channels when spring melt began. When he was upset he walked to the edge of the fields and sat where he could see the path down the valley, picking at a twig and listening for the bells on goats.
He married in 1930. His first wife, Bibi Khadija, came into the house with bedding, a few cooking pots, and a reputation for steady work. They built a marriage out of routine: early bread, tea, then the day’s tasks. He liked meals that tasted of smoke and salt; in winter he asked for thick corn bread and clarified butter when they had it. He avoided the loud teasing of young men, but he enjoyed sitting with Ustad Karim Bakhsh, an older neighbor, chewing tobacco and listening to small jokes about greedy landlords and foolish buyers at the bazaar.
Their first child, Bibi Parveen, was born in 1931. Samiullah followed in 1933, Naimat Khan in 1936, and Bibi Safia in 1942. Akbar did not speak in grand promises, but he held his children close in brief ways: lifting a boy onto the donkey, warming a baby’s feet by the hearth with his hands, bringing a bruised apple home from market and placing it in a child’s palm.
The late 1930s tightened the village. Grain ran short. Cloth, salt, and kerosene cost more. Malik Abdul Qadir, the landlord’s agent, came with sharper demands and less patience. In 1940 Akbar began doing what he could not admit openly. He cut timber and collected firewood from a hillside that the landlord claimed, and he grazed his goats there without paying the customary dues. It was not a single theft but a season after season habit: cutting on days when fog hid the slope, moving animals early before others rose. He kept it quiet. When Malik Abdul Qadir confronted him once, Akbar answered without bluster and offered extra labor days at harvest instead of money, speaking calmly. The agent accepted the labor but watched him more closely afterward.
Akbar’s son Jamal was born in 1939 and died the same year. Khadija and Shaista returned to the shrine with oil and grain, and Mullah Dost wrote another ta’wiz. Akbar went too, standing outside with the men, waiting for his mother and wife to finish their vows. He did not argue with the practice. He wanted the lamp lit and the prayer said.
Haji Karim died in 1946. After that, Rahim Gul handled more of the public face of the family, but Akbar carried the daily weight: seed, fodder, the day’s division of tasks. The next year brought Partition and fear that reached even into Swat’s valleys. Armed men moved along routes. Lashkars formed and re-formed. News arrived of killings on roads used for trade. Travel to markets became a calculation of risk. In 1947 Akbar took in Haji Ghulam Nabi, a relative from a more volatile area, for weeks at a time. Extra mouths strained stores. Akbar tightened movement, kept children closer to the house, and set the boys to guard animals more carefully at dusk. When strangers came through, he listened more than he spoke, then stayed home the next day.
Bibi Khadija died in 1950, leaving him with children and a household that needed an adult woman’s constant labor. He remarried in 1952. His second wife, Bibi Maryam, arrived younger, with energy and a blunt way of telling children what to do. She and Akbar worked as a practical pair rather than a romantic one. Maryam managed the cooking and weaving, kept the firewood stacked, and pushed Samiullah to take responsibility early.
Bibi Safia grew into a calm child who stayed close to her father’s side in the evenings. Two younger daughters came during the tense years: Bibi Shazia in 1947 and Bibi Nadia in 1949. Shazia died in 1950 and Nadia in 1951. After those deaths, Akbar’s shrine visits became more regular. He took oil and cloth, touched the threshold, and tied new amulets on surviving children without argument.
Through the 1950s and 1960s, Swat’s roads improved and bazaars grew. Naimat Khan began to spend more time near the market, bringing back small purchases and stories of price changes. Akbar did not enjoy bargaining. He preferred fixed exchanges and clear terms, and he let his sons argue with sellers while he stood aside.
His body changed around 1960. Chest tightness came with exertion, and breath shortened on steep climbs. He kept working but avoided the highest terraces. By the mid-1960s he sat more often at the edge of the fields, supervising rather than lifting. Hakim Inayat gave him mixtures and advice; Mullah Dost’s students offered prayers and inked papers. Bibi Safia, his quiet daughter, watched him closely and brought him water when he rested. Akbar accepted the treatments, then returned to the routines he trusted: quiet mornings, measured tasks, no unnecessary quarrels.
Bibi Parveen, his eldest child, died in 1965. She had married out and had children of her own. Akbar walked to her funeral and stood with the men while women wailed inside. After that he held his surviving children and grandchildren closer.
His mother, Bibi Shaista, died in 1968. The next year the princely order ended and Swat was folded more directly into Pakistan’s administration. New officials appeared, and disputes that once stayed local sometimes went toward courts or police. Akbar disliked formal offices and preferred Ustad Karim Bakhsh’s mediation and the old pattern of settlement in the village.
In 1970 his older sister Bibi Amina died. She had lived in her husband’s village for decades, but she had returned for visits and funerals, and her absence left Akbar more quiet than usual for months.
By the 1970s Samiullah and Naimat Khan had both married, and their wives and children filled the compound. Bibi Maryam ran the household with firm efficiency, directing daughters-in-law in the kitchen and settling small disputes before they reached Akbar. Rahim Gul, now aging himself, still came to discuss land matters, though both brothers moved slower than before. Bibi Shukria and Bibi Gulalai visited for funerals and festivals, carrying news from their own households. Akbar’s role was to keep tempers down and promises intact. When grandchildren fought, he separated them without shouting and made them share a piece of bread. He spent evenings in the same spot near the doorway, where he could see who came and went. He enjoyed dried apricots in season and fresh yogurt when the animals gave enough milk.
On February 21, 1982, heart pain struck hard and did not pass. The men washed his body, wrapped it in a plain shroud, and carried him to the graveyard. They recited the funeral prayer and buried him facing the qibla, packing earth down firm and leaving the grave unadorned.