Ḥaydar ʿAlī Khān Bahādur (r. 1174-96/1761-82) was born between 1129/1717 and 1134/1722 in the province of Mysore. It was probably at the end of the tenth/sixteenth that his forebears, who were land managers and petty warriors, reached India by sea from an unknown homeland. During the reign of the Mughal emperor Muḥammad Shāh (r. 1131-61/1719-48), Ḥaydar's father, Fatḥ Muḥammad (d. c.1140/1728), was a professional soldier in the service of Nawāb Saʿādatāllah Khān I of Arcot (r. 1122-1145/