Fakir of Ipi

Mirza Ali Khan (Urdu/Pashto: مرزا علی خان; born 1897, died 1960), known as the Faqir of Ipi, was a Pashtun from today's North-Waziristan Pakistan, Federally Administrated Tribal Areas. His followers addressed him as 'Haji Sahib' (or Respected Pilgrim). The village of Ipi is located near Mirali Camp in North Waziristan Agency, Waziristan, from where the Faqir of Ipi started his guerrilla warfare against the British Empire throughout the 1930s and 1940s until the British departure in 1947.

Mirza Ali Khan was born in 1901 at Kurta, a village near in North Waziristan, present day Pakistan to Sheikh Arsala Khan. He belonged to the Tori Khel branch of the Utmanzai Wazir tribe. His father died when he was twelve. Mirza studied till fourth grade at a government school and later pursued religious studies at Bannu. He built a mosque and a house at Spalga, further South in North Waziristan agency in 1922. He moved to Ipi in mid 1920s and later went to perform Hajj at Mecca. Mirza became a religious figure among the locals and was called "Haji Sahab". The British intelligence records regarded him an influential figure of the tribal agency who had a following of armed men. In 1933 Mirza went to Afghanistan to fight against the Afghan King at Khost that furthered him as a resistance leader.

In 1936, a British Indian court ruled against the marriage of a Hindu-converted Muslim girl at Bannu, after the girl's family filed case of abduction and forced conversion. The ruling was based on the fact that the girl was a minor and was asked to make her decision of conversion and marriage after she reaches the age of majority, till then she was asked to live with a third party. The verdict 'enraged' the Muslims - especially the Daur tribesmen, Faqir Ipi's kinsmen, the Daur Maliks and mullahs left the Tochi far the Khaisora Valley to the south to rouse the Torikhel Waziris. The enraged tribesmen mustered two large lashkars 10,000 strong and battled the Bannu Brigade, with heavy casualties on both sides. Widespread lawlessness erupted as tribesmen blocked roads, overran outposts and ambushed convoys. The British retaliated by sending two columns converging in the Khaisora river valley. They suppressed the agitation by imposing fines and by destroying the houses of the ringleaders, including that of the Faqir of Ipi. However, the pyrrhic nature of the victory and the subsequent withdrawal of the troops was credited by the Wazirs to be a manifestation of the Faqir's miraculous powers. He succeeded in inducing a semblance of tribal unity, as the British noticed with dismay, among various sections of Tori Khel Wazirs, the Mahsuds and the Bhittannis. He cemented his position as religious leader by declaring a Jihad against the British. This move also helped rally support from Pashtun tribesman across the border.

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