The nizam of Hyderabad is the principal Mahommedan ruler in India. The family was founded by Asaf Jah, a distinguished Turkoman soldier of the emperor Aurangzeb, who in 1713 was appointed subahdar of the Deccan, with the title of nizam-ul-mulk (regulator of the state), but eventually threw off the control of the Delhi court. Azaf Jah's death in 1748 was followed by an internecine struggle for the throne among his descendants, in which the British and the French took part. At one time the French nominee, Salabat Jang, established himself with the help of Bussy. But finally, in 1761, when the British had secured their predominance throughout southern India, Nizam Ali took his place and ruled till 1803. It was he who confirmed the grant of the Northern Circars in 1766, and joined in the two wars against Tippoo Sultan in 1792 and 1799. The additions of territory which he acquired by these wars was afterwards (1800) ceded to the British, as payment for the subsidiary force which he had undertaken to maintain. By a later treaty in 1853, the districts known as Berar were "assigned" to defray the cost of the Hyderabad contingent. In 1857 when the Mutiny broke out, the attitude of Hyderabad as the premier native state and the cynosure of the Mahommedans in India became a matter of extreme importance; but Afzul-ud-Dowla, the father of the present ruler, and his famous minister, Sir Salar Jang, remained loyal to the British. An attack on the residency was repulsed, and the Hyderabad contingent displayed their loyalty in the field against the rebels. In 1902 by a treaty made by Lord Curzon, Berar was leased in perpetuity to the British government, and the Hyderabad contingent was merged in the Indian army. The nizam Mir Mahbub Ali Khan Bahadur, Asaf Jah, a direct descendant of the famous nizam-ul-mulk, was born on the 18th of August 1866. On the death of his father in 1869 he succeeded to the throne as a minor, and was invested with full powers in 1884. He is notable as the originator of the Imperial Service Troops, which now form the contribution of the native chiefs to the defence of India. On the occasion of the Panjdeh incident in 1885 he made an offer of money and men, and subsequently on the occasion of Queen Victoria's Jubilee in 1887 he offered 20 lakhs (£130,000) annually for three years for the purpose of frontier defence. It was finally decided that the native chiefs should maintain small but well-equipped bodies of infantry and cavalry for imperial defence. For many years past the Hyderabad finances were in a very unhealthy condition, the expenditure consistently outran the revenue, and the nobles, who held their tenure under an obsolete feudal system, vied with each other in ostentatious extravagance. But in 1902, on the revision of the Berar agreement, the nizam received 25 lakhs (£167,000) a year for the rent of Berar, thus substituting a fixed for a fluctuating source of income, and a British financial adviser was appointed for the purpose of reorganizing the resources of the state.