Begum of Bhopal

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7865, 29 July 1911, Page 11

Begum of Bhopal

Only Woman Ruler of Islam Visits London . ONE of the first of England's distinguished guosts to arrive for the Coronation of King George was tire Begum of Bhopal. Her Highness travelled from Baris with fill 'the ceremony' and. core to which her rank as a princess and a purdah (veiled) lady entitled, her. ; Accompanied by her son, Prince SahibSzada, three ladies of her court and nineteen attendants, she made a swift descent from the boat into a saloon carriage which had been drawn up directly opposite to the gangway. . Nothing but a li coring glimpse of Oriental silk wraps and. veils of white and .green was ’to be seen, not oven the captain of the vessel being allowed near the gangway. ♦Sultana Tehan, ihe Begum of Bhopal, has many claims to be regarded as a unique hguha among Oii-enhai rulers. She is tho only woman to rule in a Mohammedan country and she ds the third woman of her line to do so, hav-, ing succeeded her mother in 1901, and besides tnis she is very , highly educated and an able administrator of Bhopal, a State in tho centre of India founded in the seventeenth century by her ancestor Boat ilohamnitd Khan. The rulers of this State have always been friendly to England from the day when a treats’- of dependence was signed between the ruler and the British Government in 1818, and later dn 1872, when Shah Jahan, tho Begum of B’hopaa, received the Grand Cress of the £>tar of India, to the present; day which sees the Princeas of Bhopal leaving her native land for far distant England in her wish to tailtend the coronation of the KingEmperor. In this she has shown her spirit of independent activity, for her neighbour the Nizam of Hyderabad has never crossed the water. Sultana Tehan takes the .most active part in the government of Bhopal. Her interest in education, and especially the education of the women of hex native country, is very great, but besides this she supervises the work of the various Government departments and aots as judge in all appeals. Eight years ago when Lord Ourzon was crowned Viceroy of India, the. Princess Tehan insisted upon , being present and .presenting to the Viceroy a jeweled casket containing an address assuring the British Government not only of the

fid«lßty of tor country but of thfeut of tlie whole of the Mohammedan popnlatean.' of Indio, for, she said, ‘'faithfulness and obedience to the ruler axe both strictly ordained by the Mohaanmedan religion.’'