Chicago – June 09, 2026
The story of the Alam Khan family sits inside a much older history of Muslim charitable endowments, or waqf, that stretches back several centuries in India. By the eighteenth century, nobles, merchants and scholars had endowed mosques, khanqahs, graveyards and schools as permanent waqf, embedding religious charity into the landholding system of Mughal and successor states.
Under British rule, the colonial state slowly began codifying this institution, culminating in laws such as the first Waqf Act of 1913 and the Mussalman Waqf Act of 1923, which attempted to regulate accounts and supervision of these endowments.
These measures, however, did not stop widespread complaints about encroachment, forged documents and misuse of waqf land by private parties and local officials. As one legal analysis notes, vague titles, oral declarations and weak enforcement made waqf properties especially vulnerable to being “captured” over time.
In the princely state of Hyderabad, the Asaf Jahi Nizams presided over a powerful Muslim aristocracy that combined jagirdari (feudal) estates with modern commercial ventures. In 1921, trader‑turned‑industrialist Mohammad Abdus Sattar founded the Hyderabad Deccan Cigarette Factory, launching the Golconda brand during the last Nizam’s reign.
His only daughter, Abida Khatoon, later married young Nawab Shah Alam Khan of a jagirdar family, fusing commercial capital with traditional nobility just as India moved toward independence in 1947 and the old Hyderabad order faced extinction.
