Ziauddin

Ziauddin (b. 1945) is a sitar-maker who was born in British India. He is the son of the famous sitar-maker Ustad Sher Muhammad Khan Sahib, who taught him how to make instruments when he was in fifth grade. Amongst his father’s students, Rikhi Ram, who supplied sitars to the Beatles, features perhaps most prominently. Ziauddin’s ancestors used to make sword sheaths in Mughal times, and later on, shifted to instrument making. He has made instruments for Ustad Sharif Khan Poonchawaley, Ustad Kabir Khan, and Ustad Nafees Ahmed Khan, who are all world-famous sitarists. One of his sons, Muhammad Kashan, works along with him. He runs his father’s shop, and makes a wide variety of stringed instruments by hand.