Honorary Grandmaster Title Posthumously Awarded To Sultan Khan

On Friday, February 2, 2024, the legendary chess player Mian Sultan Khan (1903-1966) was posthumously awarded the honorary grandmaster title. FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich presented the award to caretaker Prime Minister of Pakistan Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar at a ceremony in Islamabad.

Khan was one of the most remarkable chess talents the chess world has ever seen. As a British subject from Punjab (he became a Pakistani citizen in 1947), he visited Europe between 1929 and 1933, when he proved himself to be at the level of some of the world's best chess players.

In a period of just four years, before returning to India, Khan scored a number of great successes on the chessboard:

• won the British Championships in 1929, 1932 and 1933;
• scored 6/9 in the Hastings 1930-1931 tournament where he beat Jose Raul Capablanca;
• defeated Savielly Tartakower 6.5-5.5 in a match in January 1931;
• lost a match 2.5-3.5 to Salo Flohr in February 1932;
• represented the British Empire in two Olympiads, scoring 11.5/17 on top board in Prague 1931.

Below is Khan's win against Capablanca, played on December 31, 1930. "The fact that even under such conditions he succeeded in becoming a champion reveals a genius for chess which is nothing short of extraordinary," wrote Capablanca years later.  

Sadly for the chess world, Khan's career at the board was short-lived. In late 1933 he returned to the Khushab district of the Punjab (present-day Pakistan), where he owned land and where he lived until his death in 1966.

Acknowledging his world-class results, some chess fans had been pushing for Khan to get the grandmaster title for a while. This finally happened at the ceremony on Friday in Islamabad.

GM Daniel King, who published a book about Khan in 2020, commented: "In 1950, FIDE made the grandmaster title official, recognizing several leading players of the day, as well as players from the past who were beyond their peak, but still living. Sultan Khan was at least as strong as several of those players, and that was a sad omission. It is fitting that this great player and great man has been posthumously awarded the grandmaster title."

Khan might not be the only one to receive this treatment. "We are considering a couple more such successful players," Dvorkovich told Chess.com.

"We appreciate and welcome this belated recognition by FIDE," Khan's granddaughter Atiyab Sultan commented to Chess.com. She added that the correct name of her grandfather is Mian Sultan Khan, saying: "Mir was added erroneously by western writers."

As part of their efforts to give him his due, Sultan and her father Ather Sultan have authored an authentic and comprehensive biography of him for which they are currently seeking an international publisher.