178

The Nāẓims of Hyderabad (Haydarābād)

1137–1367/1724–1948

South India

1132/1720

Chin Qïlïch Khān, Qamar al-Dīn Niẓām al-Mulk, Mughal governor of the Deccan, independent 1137/1724 with the title Āṣaf Jāh

1161/1748

Nāṣir Jang b. Niẓām al-Mulk

1164/1751

Muẓaffar Jang, Niẓām al-Mulk’s son-in-law

1165/1752

Ṣalābat Jang b. Niẓām al-Mulk

1175/1762

Niẓām ‘Alī Khān b. Niẓām al-Mulk

⊘1218/1803

Sikandar Jāh b. Niẓām ‘Alī

⊘ 1244/1829

Farkhanda ‘Alī Khān b. Sikandar, Nāṣir al-Dawla

⊘ 1273/1857

Mīr Maḥbūb ‘Alī I b. Farkhanda ‘Alī, Afdal al-Dawla

⊘ 1285/1869

Mīr Maḥbūb ‘Alī II b. Mahbūb ‘Alī I, until 1301/1884 under the regency of (Sir) Nawwāb Sālār Jang

⊘ 1329–67/1911–48

Mīr ‘Uthmān ‘Alī Khān Bahādur Fath Jang b. Mīr Maḥbūb ‘Alī II

1367/1948

Annexation by India

By the end of the seventeenth century, the Mughals had absorbed all the lands of the former South Indian sultanates (see above, nos 1648). The whole of the Muslim Deccan – excepting those parts of it conquered by the Marāt́hās – was now formed into a single vast province of the Deccan under a ṣūbadār or governor.

In the confusion and decay within the Mughal empire after Awrangzīb’s death in 1118/1707, Chin Qïlïch Khān became governor of the Deccan in 1132/1720, and soon became independent at the former Quṭb Shāhī capital of Hyderabad. The Mughal emperor Muḥammad Shāh granted him the further title of Āṣaf Jāh, henceforth borne by all the members of Chin Qïlïch Khān’s line, together with that of Niẓām, derived from his honorific of Niẓām al-Mulk. By the early nineteenth century, Hyderabad State was surrounded by British territory and had become an ally of Britain, although the Niẓāms continued to acknowledge the puppet Mughal Emperors on their coins until the final demise of the latter. The theoretical suzerainty of the Mughals was nevertheless recognised until the final demise of the latter in l274/1858 (see above, no. 175), and British sovereignty not explicitly acknowledged until 1926. At the time of the Partition of India in 1947, the Niẓam’s government opted for accession to Pakistan, but the state was forcibly integrated into the Indian Union in 1948 and the rule of the Niẓāms ended.

Zambaur, 303.

EI2 ‘Ḥaydarābād. b. Ḥaydarābād State’ (J. Burton-Page).

R. C. Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People. VIII. The Maratha Supremacy, ch. 12.

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