Likely a modern Arabic-style creation, possibly echoing names linked with beauty, grace, or gentleness.
Zilani carries the echo of one of the most venerated figures in Sufi Islam: Abd al-Qadir al-Jilani (1078–1166), the Persian-born theologian and mystic whose nisba — his geographical epithet — derived from Gilan, a province in what is now northern Iran. Al-Jilani founded the Qadiri order, one of the oldest and most widely spread Sufi brotherhoods, and his reputation for miracles and spiritual authority made him arguably the most beloved saint in Sunni popular devotion across South Asia, West Africa, and the Arab world. The name Jilani (and its variant spellings Gilani, Gilani, Zilani) became a way for devout families to invoke his blessing and lineage.
In South Asian Muslim communities — particularly in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and the Indian subcontinent — names invoking al-Jilani are a form of spiritual dedication, much as Christian families once named children after patron saints. The *Z* spelling variant represents the phonological shift that occurs as the name moves through different regional accents and scripts, particularly in communities where the Persian *J* is rendered closer to *Z*. Beyond its devotional roots, Zilani has also been adopted in East African Swahili-speaking communities as a given name with its own local resonance, sometimes independent of the Sufi association.
This geographic spread — from Persia to Pakistan to East Africa — traces the routes of Islamic scholarship and trade across the medieval and early modern world. The name is a small map of that extraordinary diffusion.