Fakir Azizuddin was foreign minister of the Sikh state for most of Ranjit Singh Ji's reign. He was a Muslim physician of Lahore, of a family of hakims, and he conducted every important negotiation with the British, the Afghans and the Persians.
He is the source of the most quoted line about the Maharaja. Asked by a British officer which of Ranjit Singh Ji's eyes he had lost, he answered that the splendour of his face was such that he had never been able to determine which.
His brothers Fakir Nuruddin and Fakir Imamuddin held the governorship of Lahore city and the fort at Gobindgarh respectively. One Muslim family held the foreign office, the capital city and the principal treasury fort of a Sikh state.
He kept the state out of war with the Company for thirty years. He died in 1845 and the war came within months.
The Fakir Khana museum at Lahore is the family's house and holds their collection, still in family hands after two hundred years.
The Ropar meeting of 1831 between Ranjit Singh Ji and Lord William Bentinck was arranged and managed by him, and it is the most fully documented diplomatic occasion of that court, with both sides' accounts surviving.
He wrote and spoke Persian, Arabic and Punjabi and worked without an interpreter, which is a large part of why he was used. The Company's residents dealt with him rather than with the durbar.
The Fakir Khana collection at Lahore holds manuscripts, paintings, arms and correspondence from the Sikh period and is among the largest private museums in South Asia. It is a house in the walled city and is opened by appointment.