Rais Khan
Pakistani musician (1939-2017)
Ustad Rais Khan (Urdu: رئیس خان; 25 November 1939 – 6 May 2017) was a Pakistani sitarist. At his peak he was regarded as one of the greatest sitar players of all time. He continued performing till his last days. He moved from India to Pakistan in 1986, where he took up Pakistani citizenship.
In 2017, Khan was awarded Pakistan's third highest civilian honour, the Sitara-i-Imtiaz (Crescent of Excellence), by the Government of Pakistan.
Personal life
Rais Khan was born on 25 November 1939 in Indore, Indore State, British India, to an Urdu-speaking family. His Rajput family had produced numerous sitar players, beginning with Ustad Imdad Khan, the first sitar player in India and Pakistan to be recorded. He grew up in Bombay. His training began at a very young age, on a small coconut shell sitar. In 1986, he moved to Pakistan, seven years after marrying his fourth wife – Pakistani singer Bilqees Khanum.
“Rais Khan” enters the record as pakistani musician (1939-2017). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Rais, Khan and Pakistani can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7285063. VIAF identifies the subject as 10164587. The Library of Congress control number is nr93024095. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1939, 2017 and 1986.
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This entry incorporates text from “Rais Khan” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.