Who was Mukarram Jah, titular 8th Nizam of Hyderabad, who owned 6 palaces?

Born to Prince Azam Jah and Princess Durrushehvar in 1933 in France, he moved to Turkey after spending part of his life in the Australian outback. His mother was the imperial princess of the Ottoman Empire.

Hyderabad: The titular 8th Nizam of Hyderabad, Mukarram Jah, passed away in Istanbul in Turkey on Thursday (January 12) at 89. The heir to the erstwhile princely state of Hyderabad was the grandson of the last reigning Nizam of Hyderabad, Mir Osman Ali Khan.

Born to Prince Azam Jah and Princess Durrushehvar in 1933 in France, he moved to Turkey after spending part of his life in the Australian outback. His mother was the imperial princess of the Ottoman Empire.

---

Jah was crowned as Asaf Jah the Eighth on April 6, 1967, after the passing away of Mir Osman Ali Khan in February 1967.

He did his schooling at Doon School in Dehradun and prominent schools in England’s London and Cambridge. He was also an alumnus of the London School of Economics.

Jah was a friend of India’s first Prime Minister, Pt Jawahar Lal Nehru. He stated in 2010 that Nehru had wanted him to become his envoy or the Indian ambassador to a Muslim country.

His net worth, which declined after giving up a few assets during a divorce settlement in the 1990s, was noted to have been around $1 billion. Jah was the owner of some iconic buildings in the city, including Falaknuma Palace and Chowmahalla Palace.

He owned the Nazri Bagh Palace, Chiraan Palace, Purani Haveli in Hyderabad, and Naukhanda Palace in Aurangabad.

Jah married five women, and the first was with a Turkish noblewoman. He reportedly divorced her as she did not want to move from Hyderabad palace to a sheep station in the Australian outback. He then married a former BBC employee and airhostess. After her death, he married Miss Turkey Manolya Onur in 1992. He married twice more to a Moroccan woman and a Turkish woman.

On Tuesday, the family will allow his mortal remains to be kept at Hyderabad’s Chowmahalla palace. “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, January 17 2023 (sic).”