The Faqir of Ipi – A Mystic Warrior of Waziristan

Abstract

Mirza Ali Khan alias Faqir of Ipi remained a controversial figure and legendary character in the history of South Asia as his life had many facets, both overt and covert. While the local tribes believed, as they believe even today, that he was a pious man with all the qualifying attributes of mystics but to the British he was a ‘devil incarnate’ and to Muslim political agent he was ‘saint warrior’ and the protagonist of Pukhtunistan movement in tribal area even after the creation of Pakistan. For more than one decade his body and mind were full of tasks and thoughts against the British rule. He could not think of anything else but hostility against the British, which he haunted like a ‘devil incarnate’. One should not lose sight of an important factor that in his entire struggle against the firangi, he was assisted in matters of money by the Afghan government as well as Germans and the Italians. The Axis Powers could not find a fiercer fighter than the Faqir in all the British colonies during the Second World War. The implication of the Faqir’s factor for that reason was an international one. For the Government of Pakistan, the Faqir phenomenon was no more than a ‘law and order’ problem. Instead of taking it in its proper perspective, it was left to the power politics and authority of the political agent who has always held two traditional cards – carrot and stick – a policy that fails to work in the face of an ideological hostility.