Zakiruddin Khan

Zakiruddin Khan was the elder son of Mohammad Jan Khan and a grand-nephew of Behram Khan, who took up his training after Mohammad Jan Khan left the family home. He was appointed principal musician of the Udaipur court by Maharana Sajjan Singh.

He was known for his learning as well as his singing: the musicologist V. N. Bhatkhande is said to have always excluded him from his criticism of musicians who lacked knowledge of shastra. Contemporaries described a vibrant personality and a regal bearing, and he was sometimes mistaken for the maharaja of a princely state. Atiya Begum Fyzee-Rahmin, who was present, recorded that his performance of Raga Megh at the 1916 Baroda music conference was followed by a thunderstorm lasting several hours. He and Allabande Khan performed together at the second All-India Music Conference in Delhi in 1918.

He married the elder daughter of the celebrated veena player Bande Ali Khan; their son was Ziauddin Khan. Neither he nor others of his generation used "Dagar" as a family name — that practice was begun later by his nephew Rahimuddin Khan. He is credited with developing the sadharani geeti, the blended manner of dhrupad singing that his descendants still name as the family's own; his great-grandson Bahauddin Dagar attributes the rhythmic clarity of his alap to it. He also played the veena, privately rather than in performance. He died in 1923, though his dates are not settled: dhrupad.info gives the 1840s for his birth, the Dagar Archives in Jaipur list 1846–1918, and other accounts 1855–1922.

He was known for a powerful voice and for a forceful, manly style with an emphasis on syllables, in contrast to the softer, more mellifluous singing of his younger brother Allabande Khan — a contrast that made them an effective duet pair. He also played the veena. The sociologist Dhurjati Prasad Mukerji, writing in 1955, placed him with Allabande Khan and Nasiruddin Khan among "the greatest alapiyas".