Awadh (British Oudh), a region between the Himalayas and the Ganges in North India, a perennially important cultural and administrative centre, was a province of all the major Islamicate dynasties in India and emerged as an autonomous political system during Mughal segmentation in the eighteenth century. Under the rule of its eleven rulers, called nawāb s and descended from the Iranian Nīshāpūrī sayyid s, who presided over this rich realm from 1720 to 1856, the region expanded to twice its original size. By 1188/1775 Awadh comprised 233,000 square