Mohammad Alam Channa: A history of the world's tallest people

Following the death of Gabriel Monjane, Pakistan’s Mohammad Alam Channa became the world’s tallest person.

Despite many reports that he was 8 ft 3 in (251.4 cm), including in old editions of the Guinness World Records book, Mohammad was actually 7 ft 7.2 in (231.7 cm) – still an impressive stature.

His reign as tallest person and tallest man lasted from 1990 to 1998, but uniquely he shared the overall title with the tallest woman, Sandy Allen.

Early life

Mohammad was born in 1953 in the city of Sehwan in Pakistan’s Sindh province.

It’s believed he began growing abnormally somewhere between the ages of 10 and 12, that he was already 6 ft 4 in tall by the time he was 18 and that he continued to grow until the age of 26.

Reports said his record-breaking height was caused by a tumour on his pituitary gland, which produces the growth hormone.

He came from a poor family and did not receive any kind of noteworthy education.

Like many of the men in his family, Mohammad worked as one of the attendants at the mausoleum of Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, a shrine to a Sufi Muslim saint.

Mohammed was a sweeper at this ornate 650-year-old building, which hosts hundreds of thousands of pilgrims every year.

It was also reported in US newspapers at the time that he was given $50 per month by the Pakistani government in order to cope with life at his height, although it’s not known if this really was the case.

Chance encounter leads to new career

It was while working at the shrine that Mohammad was spotted in 1978 by the owner of a circus who offered him a job.

An illustration of Mohammad Alam Channa

It’s said he was paid just 15 Pakistan rupees a week, so when the circus owner offered him 160 rupees a month, he accepted on the spot.

Those figures at the time were equivalent to going from earning $1.51 a week to $16.14 a month.

While those figures don’t seem all that impressive by today’s standards, it would have been a significant increase for Mohammad, who also became a local celebrity thanks to his new job in the circus.

He travelled all over Sindh performing his act, which saw him enter the stage while two men dressed as clowns were doing a routine.

They’d pretend to run away from the ‘giant’ and Mohammad would grab them, lift them up and put them on his shoulders.

He travelled the globe for a time too, being pictured reaching up to the top deck of a London bus to shake hands with passengers and heading to Tokyo to meet the publishers of a Japanese edition of Guinness World Records.

But the fame proved all too much for Mohammad, who hated the attention he got from the media and from onlookers wherever he went.

In search of a quieter life, he quit the circus and went back to working at the shrine.

Despite his move away from the spotlight, Mohammad was irreversibly in the public eye, and people still clamoured to meet him.

General Ziaul Haq, a dictator who controlled Pakistan at the time, went to much effort to meet Mohammad.

During a parade for Pakistan’s Republic Day in 1985, Haq was photographed handing Mohammad an award, and he had to bend over quite far to receive it.

The picture was published in newspapers around the world.

Illness and death

Mohammed, who married in 1989 and welcomed a son in 1990, fell ill in 1998 and his kidneys began to fail.

News footage from the time shows him lying down on a hospital bed that appears to have been extended.

He’s also seen holding on to the shoulders of other men to steady himself as he crouches down to fit through a hospital doorway.

A local doctor explained to cameras that Mohammad needed surgery but that they did not have equipment that would allow them to operate on a person of his size.

The doctor recommended he to go America or the UK for his treatment, and the government sent him to the US and financed his treatment in the hope of a speedy recovery.

He was sent to New York, but tragically died in hospital there after slipping into a coma.

He was 45.