page_title: Bhopal State
section_title: The rule of the Begums
hierarchical_section_title: Bhopal State / The rule of the Begums
caption_attribution_description: English: Bhopal Government postage stamp, 1937. 1 Anna 6 Pies (1½ annas).
context_page_description: Bhopal State was a tributary state in 18th-century India, a princely salute state with 19-gun salute in a subsidiary alliance with British India from 1818 to 1947, and an independent state from 1947 to 1949. Islamnagar was founded and served as the State's first capital, which was later shifted to the city of Bhopal.
  The state was founded in 1707 CE by Dost Mohammad Khan, a Pashtun soldier in the Mughal army, who became a mercenary after the Emperor Aurangzeb's death and annexed several territories to his fiefdom. It came under the suzerainty of the Nizam of Hyderabad in 1723 shortly after its foundation. In 1737, Marathas defeated the Mughals and the Nawab of Bhopal in the Battle of Bhopal, and started collecting tribute from the state. After the defeat of the Marathas in the Third Anglo-Maratha War, Bhopal became a British princely state in 1818. Bhopal State was the second largest state in pre-independence India, with a Muslim leadership, first being Hyderabad State. The state was merged into the Union of India in 1949 as Bhopal. In 1901 the state had a population of 665,961 and an average revenue of Rs.25,00,000.
context_section_description: Between 1819 and 1926, it was ruled by four women – Begums – unique in the royalty of those days. Qudsia Begum was the first woman ruler, who was succeeded by her only daughter Sikandar Begum, who in turn was succeeded by her only daughter, Shah Jahan Begum. Sultan Shah Jahan Begum was the last women ruler, who after 25 years of rule, abdicated in favour of her son, Hamidullah Khan. The rule of Begums gave the city its waterworks, railways, a postal system and a municipality constituted in 1907.
caption: The Bhopal State postal service was introduced during the rule of the Begums.
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