Muhammad Safiullah Khan Tanoli was the grandson of Maddad Khan Tanoli who was the younger brother of Painda Khan, the ruling Nawab of Amb. Amb was a princely state in the present-day Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region of Pakistan. Safiullah Khan served as the tehsil collector of Abbottabad under British Raj, appointed by the Governor of Khyber George Roos-Keppel, and later became the Minister of Defence of the Nawab of Amb.