Wajid Ali Shah

Wajid Ali Shah (30 July 1822 – 1887) was the eleventh and last King of Awadh, reigning from 13 February 1847 until the British annexed his kingdom on 11 February 1856 ¹.

Deposed on a charge of misrule, he was exiled to Garden Reach at Metiabruz, a suburb of Calcutta, where he lived on a pension and recreated the court culture of Lucknow around him ¹. He was a poet, playwright and prolific writer — his Sawat-ul-Qalub runs to more than a thousand pages — and a dancer and patron under whom Kathak reached new heights and the Lucknow gharana took shape ¹. His first wife was Alam Ara, called Khas Mahal; his second, Muhammadi Khanum, better known as Begum Hazrat Mahal, led the resistance at Lucknow in 1857 as regent for their son Birjis Qadr ¹. At Metiabruz he built the Sibtainabad Imambara, and there he was buried ².

His faith is recorded as Shia Twelver, documented. The Arabic article gives his religion as Muslim Shia ², and the English Oudh State article states, citing the Encyclopaedia of Islam, that the Nawabs of Oudh were Shia Muslims who promoted Shia as the state religion ³; his own documented practice matches the Twelver context — he founded the Sibtainabad Imambara, a Husainiya for the Muharram rites, and was buried in it ². Under the founder's mapping of 1 November 2026 these attestations settle shia-twelver; Wikidata's religion values are structured data and were not counted.

The English and Arabic articles and Wikidata agree on his birth (30 July 1822, paired in Arabic with 12 Dhu al-Qa'da 1237 AH) at Lucknow ^{1 2 4}. His death date is debated — the English and Arabic articles give 1 September 1887, the Arabic pairing it with 13 Dhu al-Hijja 1304 AH, while Wikidata gives 21 September 1887 ^{2 4}. Lucknow and Calcutta have no museum place records yet, so no place edges are recorded. His wife Begum Hazrat Mahal, born about 1820, is the elder spouse; under the write-once rule their spouse edge belongs in her record, and it is flagged for a coordinator decision rather than written here.