Hatice Hairie Ayse Durru shehvar Sultan(1914–2006) was born in Istanbul. In November 1922, her father, Abdul Mejid II, became the last caliph of the disintegrating Ottoman Empire.
Earlier, Turkey's
Grand National Assembly in Ankara decided to split the sultanate and caliphate.
The first was abolished, but the representative of the Turkish Sultanate was
given the title of spiritual leader of all Muslims in the country.
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| Princess Durru Shehvar and prince Azam Jah |
Durru shehvar is Abdul-Mejid's only daughter. The
girl grew up in the Dolmabahce Palace and received a decent education.
Sultana is fluent in
English and French, and subsequently studied Urdu. Although her father had four
wives, Durru shehvar had only one half-brother, shehzade Omer Faruk.
On October 29, 1923, the Ottoman empire ceased to exist and the young
republic no longer needed a caliph.
On March 3, 1924, a law was enacted, according to which all members of
the Sultanate were required to leave the country within two days and could not
return under the threat of trial.
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| Princess Niloufer and Princess Durru Shehvar with their husbands |
And the former
caliph, his wife and children were immediately loaded into a car and sent to
the Bulgarian border. There, they boarded the Orient Express to Nice. In
France, the former sultan continued her studies.
The
princess was ten years old when her family was banished from Turkey under the
Ataturk reforms, following which they settled in Nice, France.
As Abdul Mejid had
friendly relations with the British branch of the Red Cross, they began to
worry about the fate of the former caliph.
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| Princess Durru Shehvar |
In
particular, an appeal to all Muslim monarchs for help was issued.
Persuaded
by Maulana Shaukath Ali and his brother, Maulana Mohammad Ali, Nizam Mir Osman
Ali Khan decided to send a life-time monthly pension of 300 pounds to the
deposed Caliph, and allowances to several individuals in the family.
Obviously, this fact affected Durru shehvar's future marriage.
When Durru Shehvar, came of age, she was sought in
marriage by several Muslim Royals including the Shah of Persia and the King of
Egypt for their heirs.Her distant relative Mohammad Abid, son of Sultan Abdul
Hamid, also wanted to marry her.
When the crown
prince of Hyderabad, Azam Jah, came of age, the Nizam started looking for a
suitable bride for his heir. Princess Durru Shehvar was the prime candidate.
But her father married her to the eldest son Azam Jah,
the son of Nizam of Hyderabad. By the way, his youngest son married his cousin
Durru shehvar Niloufer.
Durru Shehvar had
the striking looks and bearing of someone born to be queen. Her ancestry was
impeccable and, most importantly, through her bloodline.
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| Princess Durru Shehvar and her husband Prince Azam Jah with her Son Mukarram Jah |
Shaukat Ali
prevailed on the Nizam to send a proposal to the Caliph asking for Durru
Shever’s hand for his elder son, Prince Azam Jah. The deposed Caliph could
hardly reject the offer from his benefactor.
But it
was not that easy; the Mehr (the bride money) of 50,000 pounds that the Caliph
demanded for his daughter was “too big”, the Nizam felt.
But with the
intervention of Shaukat Ali, the Caliph proposed to offer for the same Mehr,
the hand of his brother’s daughter Niloufer, for the Nizam’s younger son,
Prince Mauzam Jah. The Nizam readily agreed and sent his two sons to France.
The marriage of
Princess Durru Shehvar with Prince Azam Jah, along with that of Prince Mauzam
and Niloufer took place in Nice, in France, on 12 November, 1931, in a simple
ceremony attended by only a simple affair with only the members of Sultan’s
family at Nice, a few Turkish nobles and friends.
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| Princess Durru Shehvar at age of 9 Year |
According to the marriage contract, Durru shehvar
received $200,000 in compensation in the event of a divorce or death of his
spouse
She held the titles
of Princess of Berar through marriage, and Imperial Princess of the Ottoman
Empire by birth before the monarchy's abolition in 1922.
Princess Durru Shehvar and Princess Niloufer with father last Ottoman Caliph --wedding 1932
Durru Shehvar was 18
at the time, and significantly taller than her husband of 25, Azam Jah. Her
father-in-law, the Nizam loved pointing out how much taller she was than his
son, at their parties.
The Princess became
the first woman to inaugurate an airport when she inaugurated the airport in
Hyderabad in the 1940s.
She is also credited with inaugurating the Osmania General Hospital. She
set up the Durru Shehvar Children's & General Hospital for women and
children in the old city of Hyderabad.
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| Princess Durru Shehvar with his Father Abdul Majeed Last Ottoman Caliph |
She was subject to immense attention and
adulation in the 1930s. “Jab woh paan khaati thi, toh halak se jaata hua dikhta
tha (When she swallowed a paan, you could see it going down her throat!).
Following the birth
of her sons Prince Mukarram Jah in 1934 and Prince Muffakham Jah in 1939, she
took charge of their upbringing, the two princes being educated in Britain but
got them married to Turkish ladies.
Mukarram studied in Eton, where India’s first prime
minister, Jawaharlal Nehru had earlier studied.
The last Nizam- (Mir Osman Ali Khan) later bypassed
his own son Azam Jah and nominated her first son Mukarram Jah his grandson, as
his successor.
She
was of impeccable lineage but her family had very little money, and it was a
typical rags-to-riches story. She knew of her husband’s 50 concubines but
carried herself regally.”
The Nizam called her
his precious Jewel (Nagina) and encouraged her to participate actively in
Hyderabad’s social life.
In Hyderabad, Durru
Shehvar soon identified herself with the people. With a great passion for
providing health care and education for common people, she set up a general and
children’s hospital in Purani Haveli, which still runs in her name.
A Junior College for
girls in Yakutpura, Bagh-e-Jahanara, is also run on the funds she provided.
Durru Shehvar also laid the foundation stone of the Begum pet Airport building
in 1936. Until then a small strip at Hakimpet served as the airport for
Hyderabad.
She
inaugurated (1939) the Ajmal Khan Tibbiya College Hospital in Aligarh Muslim
University (AMU).
Durru Shehvar was
fluent in French, English, Turkish and Urdu and even contributed articles to
French magazines. She believed that women should earn their own living and
worked hard to remove the practice of purdah.
Her marriage was not exactly a fairytale ending.
Marriage "mismatched" in every sense, “She was 5’10", her
husband was 5 ‘3". She brought with her a completely cosmopolitan life,
while most of Hyderabad was still under purdah.
Perhaps this excerpt
of a 1931 article in Time magazine, reporting on their wedding, can offer a
hint. The Crown Prince Azam Jah stated his views on marriage thus:
‘I like horses. They
are more dependable than women. If a horse throws you it will stand by until
you get on your feet.’ Nevertheless Crown Prince Azam Jah obeyed his father’s
orders to marry.”
It was very
difficult for Durru Shehvar to adjust the very conservative Muslim culture that
permeated Hyderabad at the time.
But she never went
into purdah. There were also rumors at the time that the Nizam’s senior wife
Dulhan Pasha wanted to poison her.
Relations between Azam Jah (her husband) and his brother Moazzam Jah
were also strained. She always thought Hyderabad could never equal the Ottoman
culture, and many Hyderabadis thought she looked down on them.”
Durru Shehvar knew of her husband’s 50
concubines but carried herself regally. However, there was a great gulf between
the Princess and the Prince, Azam Jah and their marriage fell apart within few
years.
Prince
Azam Jah had a tendency for and gambling but carried herself regally.” Enough
said.
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| Gorgeous Princess Durru Shehvar in London in 1999 |
It is an irony that
when she was born, her father, the Caliph was the head of all the Muslims in
the world; but was overthrown and sent away in exile.
After the divorce, Durru Shehvar stayed in Hyderabad
for some years, and then moved to London, where she died in 2006, aged 93, with
her two sons by her side.
(Her ex-husband Azam
Jah, had passed away in 1970, aged 63.). After her husband’s death, she divided
her time between Hyderabad and London. With her death, ended a glorious chapter
of Hyderabad.
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| Gorgeous Princess Durru Shehvar in 1999 in London |
Each time she
returned to Hyderabad for a visit, she attracted big crowds. She always
remained a superstar, fondly remembered and frequently written about in the
Indian press.
We read historical
events to learn from it, main learning point for Muslims of the Subcontinent is
the role played by our ancestors that shaped the history and the world.
Our religious
leaders were armed with both religious and modern education. This was the
reason they influenced the masses and an individual.
As in this case,
Maulana Shaukat Ali had influence on both the last Caliph and the richest man
on earth, the Nizam of Hyderabad.
The End
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