177
1134–1272/1722–1856
North India
|
1134/1722 |
Sayyid Muḥammad Amīn Sa‘adat Khān Bahādur, Burhān al-Mulk |
|
1152/1739 |
Abū Manṣūr Khān, Safdār Jang |
|
⊘ 1167/1754 |
Haydar b. Ṣafdār Jang, Shujā‘ al-Dawla Jalāl al-Dīn |
|
⊘ 1189/1775 |
Āṣaf al-Dawla b. Haydar |
|
1212/1797 |
Wazīr ‘Alī, adopted son of Aṣaf al-Dawla, d. 1232/1817 |
|
⊘ 1213/1798 |
Sa‘ādat ‘Alī Khān b. Āsaf al-Dawla |
|
⊘ 1229/1814 |
Ḥaydar I b. Sa‘ādat ‘Alī, Ghāzī ‘1-Dīn, after 1234/1819 with the title of King |
|
⊘ 1243/1827 |
Ḥaydar II Sulaymān Jāh b. Ḥaydar I |
|
⊘ 1253/1837 |
Muḥammad ‘Alī b. Sa‘ādat ‘Alī, Mu‘īn al-Dīn |
|
⊘ 1258/1842 |
Amjad ‘All Thurayyā Jāh b. Muḥammad ‘Alī b. Sa‘ādat ‘Alī |
|
⊘ 1263–72/1847–56 |
Wājd ‘Alī b. Amjad, d. 1304/1887 |
|
1272/1856 |
Annexation to British India |
|
⊘ (1273/1857 |
Barjīs Qadïr b. Wājd ‘Alī, raised to the throne during the Sepoy Mutiny) |
The region of Oudh was part of the great Gangetic plain and comprised what is now the central region of Uttar Pradesh State, the Madhya Désa or ‘middle land’ of Hindu epic times. In the Islamic period, its main cities were Lucknow (Lakhnaw) and Cawnpore (Kānpur).
The decline of the Mughal empire after Awrangzīb’s death in 1118/1707 allowed Sa‘ādat Khān, whose family stemmed from Khurasan in eastern Persia, and his successors as Nawwābs or governors, to assume virtual independence, although right to the end they acknowledged the theoretical suzerainty of the Mughal emperors in Delhi. During the eighteenth century, Oudh had a strategic importance in British eyes as a bulwark against Marāt́hā encroachments from the west and south, and after 1178/1764 it was willy-nilly drawn into alliance with the East India Company in its base of Bengal. By the opening of the nineteenth century, however, Oudh was surrounded by British territory except for the frontier with Nepal on the north. The introduction of sound government was a proviso of the 1801 treaty with Oudh, and it was on grounds of misgovernment that the Governor-General Lord Dalhousie deposed Wājid ‘Alī in 1272/1856, thus putting an end to the kingdom of Oudh. Fears aroused by its annexation turned out, in fact, to be a major contributory cause of the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857–8.
Under its local rulers, Oudh, and especially the capital Lucknow, with its court circle, witnessed a burgeoning of Shī‘ī religiosity, Urdu literature and Indo-Muslim architecture, and Lucknow remains today an important centre of North Indian Shī‘ism.
Zambaur, 302.
EI2 ‘Awadh’ (C. Collin Davies), ‘Burhān al-Mulk’ (A. S. Bazmee Ansari), ‘Kānpur’ (C. E. Bosworth), ‘Lakhnaw’ (Abdus Subhan).
G. P. Taylor, k‘The coins of the Kings of Awadh’, JASB, new series, 8 (1912), Numismatic Suppl., 249–74.
R. C. Majumdar (ed.), The History and Culture of the Indian People. VIII. The Maratha Supremacy, ch. 5 (b).
idem (ed.), IX. British Paramountcy and Indian Renaissance, Part I, ch. 4 C.
R. D. Barnett, North India between Empires. Awadh, the Mughals and the British 1720–1801, Berkeley CA 1980.