Mukkaram Jah who willed to be buried at his ancestral graveyard in Hyderabad will be laid to rest with his mortal remains on Tuesday, January 17.
AMN / WEB DESK
Titular Nizam Mir Barkat Ali Khan popularly known as Mir Mukkaram Jah, the grandson of the last Nizam Osman Ali Khan of Hyderabad, died on Saturday night in Istanbul, Turkey. He was 90 and died peacefully in sleep due to an old age-related illness.
Mukkaram Jah who willed to be buried at his ancestral graveyard in Hyderabad will be laid to rest with his mortal remains on Tuesday, January 17. His large family that constitutes his children and grandchildren are scheduled to fly to Hyderabad in a charted plane for burial purposes, family sources said.
The Namaz e Janaza of Mukarram Jah aka Asaf Jah VIII will be offered at the Mecca Masjid, Hyderabad. He will be laid to rest at the royal graves of the Nizams near Charminar, where all the seven Nizams are buried.
Mukarram Jah was born in 1933 to Prince Azam Jah and Princess Durrushehvar in France. He was crowned Asaf Jah the Eighth on April 6, 1967, after the passing away of his grandfather Mir Osman Ali Khan, the seventh Nizam of the princely state of Hyderabad. He later moved to Turkey after spending part of his life in the Australian outback.
A statement issued by his office on behalf of the family said, “We are deeply saddened to inform you that Nawab Mir Barket Ali Khan Walashan Mukarram Jah Bahadur, H.E.H The Eighth Nizam of Hyderabad, passed away peacefully in Istanbul, Turkey late last night at 10.30 pm (IST) (sic).”
The family will allow his mortal remains to be kept at Hyderabad’s Chowmahalla Palace on Tuesday, January 17. “As per his desire of being laid to rest in his homeland, his children are scheduled to travel to Hyderabad with the mortal remains of the late Nizam on Tuesday,” read the statement. It further added that “on arrival (in Hyderabad) the body will be taken to the Chowmahalla Palace and after completing the required rituals the burial will take place at the Asaf Jahi family tombs. The schedule and other details will be released in due course.”
Mukarram Jah married five times. His first wife was a Turkish noblewoman, Esra Birgin who he married in 1959. Jah left his treasure trove in Hyderabad for a sheep station in the Australian outback and had to divorce his wife, as she did not want to move with him to Australia.
In 1979, Jah married a former air hostess and employee of the BBC, Helen Simmons. She converted to Islam and changed her name to Aysha. After her death, Mukarram Jah married Manolya Onur, a former Miss Turkey in 1992. He divorced her after a five-year marriage in 1997. He married Jameela Boularous former Miss Morocco, in 1992. In 1994, he married Princess Ayesha Orchedi who is from Turkey.
Mukarram Jah has a big family from all these marriages. Esra Birgin had one son and one daughter. Helen Simmons had two sons. By Manolya Onur he had a daughter. By Jameela Boularous he had a daughter:
Until the 1980s, Mukkaram Jah was the richest person in India. However, in the 1990s he lost some assets to divorce settlements. His net worth right now is estimated to be at $US1 billion.
Mukkaram Jah still owns a huge fortune in Hyderabad. The palaces he owns are Chowmahalla Palace, Falaknuma Palace, Nazribagh Palace, (King Kothi), Chiraan Palace, Banjara Hills, Purani Haveli, and Naukhanda Palace in Aurangabad.
Currently, his two main palaces in Hyderabad, Chowmahalla and Falaknuma, have been restored and opened to the public, the former as a museum showcasing the era of the Nizams and the latter as a luxury hotel.
Mukarram Jah was the chairman of the H.E.H. Nizam’s Charitable Trust and Mukarram Jah Trust for Education & Learning (MJTEL) which is situated at the Purani Haveli, Hyderabad.
Mukkaram Jah inherited the richest fortune in the world when his grandfather, the last Nizam of Hyderabad, died in 1967. But lavish palaces, stunning jewels, his craving for a dazzling blue-blooded European princess for a wife, and his lavish lifestyle cost him dear as he lacked the will to manage his inheritance.
In a little over thirty years, his huge fortune at one point estimated to be worth more than Rs 25,000 crore, all got evaporated. The inheritor of the fabled wealth of Nizams spent his last living days in a two-bedroom apartment at the Bosphorus in Istanbul, Turkey.
With the passing away of Mir Mukkaram Jah, the legacy of the Nizam of Hyderabad has come to an end.