page_title: Nawab
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Nawab / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Asaf-ud-dowlah listening to musicians in his court हिन्दी: आसफ़ुद्दौला अपने दरबार में संगीत सुनते हुए
context_page_description: Nawab also spelt Nawaab, Navaab, Navab, Nowab, Nabob, Nawaabshah, Nawabshah or Nobab, is a Royal title indicating a sovereign ruler, often of a South Asian state, in many ways comparable to the western titles of King, Grand Duke and Duke. The relationship of a Nawab to the Emperor of India has been compared to that of the Dukes, Grand Dukes, and Kings of Saxony to the German Emperor. In earlier times the title was ratified and bestowed by the reigning Mughal emperor to semi-autonomous Muslim rulers of subdivisions or princely states in the Indian subcontinent loyal to the Mughal Empire i.e. Nawabs of Bengal. The title is common among Muslim rulers of South Asia as an equivalent to the title Maharaja, however it is not exclusive to Muslims only.
  "Nawab" usually refers to males and literally means Viceroy; the female equivalent is "Begum" or "Nawab Begum". The primary duty of a Nawab was to uphold the sovereignty of the Mughal emperor along with the administration of a certain province.
context_section_description: Nawab is a Hindustani term, used in Urdu, Hindi, Bengali 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.
  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 Awadh, Amb, Bahawalpur, Balasinor, Baoni, Banganapalle, Bhopal, Cambay, Jaora, Junagadh, Kurnool (the main city of Deccan), Kurwai, Mamdot, Multan, Palanpur, Pataudi, Radhanpur, Rampur, Malerkotla, Sachin, Rajoli and Tonk. Other former rulers bearing the title, such as the nawabs of Bengal and Oudh, had been dispossessed by the British or others by the time the Mughal dynasty finally ended in 1857.
  Some princes became Nawab by promotion, e.g. 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, e.g. in Rajgarh a single rawat (rajah) went by nawab. 
  The style for a nawab's queen 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.
caption: The winter diwan of a Mughal nawab
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