, meeting with
Mir Jafar after the
Battle of Plassey, by
Francis Hayman Nawab Sir Sadeq Mohammad Khan V, the last ruling Nawab of
Bahawalpur Nawab was a
Hindustani term, used in
Urdu,
Hindi,
Bengali,
Pashto and many other North-Indian languages, borrowed via
Persian from the
Arabic honorific plural of
naib, or "deputy". In some areas, especially
Bengal, the term is pronounced
nobab. This later variation has also entered English and other foreign languages as
nabob. of a
Mughal nawab The
Subahdar was the head of the Mughal provincial administration. He was assisted by the provincial
Diwan,
Bakhshi,
Faujdar,
Kotwal,
Qazi,
Sadr,
Waqa-i-Navis,
Qanungo and
Patwari. As the
Mughal empire began to dissolve in the early 18th century, many
subahs became effectively independent. The term
nawaab is often used to refer to any Muslim ruler in north or
south India while the term
nizam is preferred for a senior official; it literally means "governor of region". The
Nizam of Hyderabad had several nawabs under him: Nawabs of Cuddapah, Sira, Rajahmundry, Kurnool, Chicacole, et al.
Nizam was his personal title, awarded by the Mughal Government and based on the term
nazim as meaning "senior officer".
Nazim is still used for a district collector in many parts of India. The term
nawab is still technically imprecise, as the title was also awarded to Hindus and
Sikhs, as well, and large
zamindars and not necessarily to all Muslim rulers. With the decline of that empire, the title, and the powers that went with it, became hereditary in the ruling families in the various provinces. Under later British rule, nawabs continued to rule various
princely states of
Amb,
Bahawalpur,
Balasinor,
Baoni,
Banganapalle,
Bhopal,
Cambay,
Jaora,
Junagadh,
Kurnool (the main city of Deccan),
Kurwai, Mamdot,
Multan,
Palanpur,
Pataudi,
Radhanpur,
Rampur,
Malerkotla,
Sachin, and
Tonk. Other former rulers bearing the title, such as the nawabs of Bengal and
Awadh, had been deprived by the British or others by the time the Mughal dynasty finally ended in 1857. with his grandson
Siraj-Ud-Daulah sit opposite his nephew Sayyid Ahmad Khan (Saulat Jang) and his Wazir another one is high rank amartya of durbar, Murshidabad. Some princes became nawab by promotion. For example, the ruler of
Palanpur was "diwan" until 1910, then "nawab sahib". Other nawabs were promoted are restyled to another princely style, or to and back, such as in
Rajgarh a single rawat (rajah) went by nawab. The style for a nawab's wife is
begum. Most of the nawab dynasties were male
primogenitures, although several ruling
Begums of Bhopal were a notable exception. Before the incorporation of the
Subcontinent into the
British Empire, nawabs ruled the kingdoms of Awadh (or Oudh, encouraged by the British to shed the Mughal suzerainty and assume the imperial style of Badshah), Bengal,
Arcot and Bhopal. ==Ruling nawab families==