Sher Muhammad Khan of Malerkotla
Nawab of Malerkotla who protested in Wazir Khan's court against the execution of the Guru's young sons, though his own brother had died fighting the Guru.
Sher Muhammad Khan was the Nawab of Malerkotla, a small Afghan principality between Ludhiana and Sangrur. He fought against Guru Gobind Singh at Anandpur and Chamkaur, and his brother was killed in the fighting.
Yet when the Guru's young sons, Zorawar Singh and Fateh Singh, were brought before Wazir Khan at Sirhind in December 1704 and sentenced to death, he alone stood up in the court and protested that Islam did not permit children to be punished for the deeds of their father. His protest, the haa da naara, was ignored.
When the Guru heard of it, he blessed Malerkotla. During the massacres of 1947, when Muslims were killed or driven out of almost every town in East Punjab, Malerkotla was spared, and the Sikhs say it was because of that blessing. It remains the one Muslim-majority town of Indian Punjab.
