Dr. Ali Mohammad Jan
(Padma Shri, 1975 – Medicine)

In the valleys and villages of Kashmir, patients would travel long distances and sometimes stop cars on the road, refusing to let a certain doctor pass until he agreed to examine them. That doctor was Ali Mohammad Jan Fazili, known simply and affectionately as Dr. Ali Jan—or, more reverently, the “Luqman of Kashmir.”

Born on 3 September 1914 in Gojwara, Srinagar, into the respected Fazili family, he was the son of the scholar Ghulam Rasool Fazili. He graduated with distinction from King Edward Medical College, Lahore, in 1937, topping his class and collecting multiple medals in surgery, midwifery, pathology and forensic medicine. After years of service in remote rural postings across Jammu and Kashmir—often treating venereal diseases and other neglected conditions—he went to the United Kingdom. There he completed both the Diploma in Child Health and the Membership of the Royal College of Physicians (Edinburgh) in an astonishingly short time.

Returning home, he rose to become a physician specialist at SMHS Hospital and later Professor of Medicine at Government Medical College, Srinagar. His reputation rested not on elaborate equipment but on extraordinary clinical acumen: a keen ear for the patient’s history, sharp observation, and an almost intuitive grasp of diagnosis. People said half the illness disappeared the moment he spoke to them with calm attention. He served as vice-president of the Governing Body of SKIMS, Soura, and on the state’s Health and Family Planning Advisory Committee, helping shape tertiary care in the region.

One younger colleague, watching him examine a long line of patients with the same unhurried care, once asked how he never seemed rushed.
Ali Jan replied with a gentle smile, “The patient has already waited with his pain. The least we can do is give him our full attention. Listening is the first medicine.”

In 1975 the Government of India recognised his lifelong service with the Padma Shri. Dr. Ali Mohammad Jan passed away on 31 October 1988. Decades later he is still remembered across Kashmir as the physician whose diagnostic skill, compassion and humility made him a legend—the Luqman who treated not only bodies but the anxieties of an entire people.