Fatah Muhammad

Sayyid walShareef Fateh Muhammad Ali Khan Kolari (6 May 1704 – 9 September 1725), Fateh Muhammad or Nadim Sahib was a General of Mysore. he was the father of Hyder Ali his fifth child and the prestigious founder of the Sultanate of Mysore, who was born in the year 1720, from his third wife.

Born in the city of Kolar into a Najeeb AlTarfayn Sayyid family meaning having ancestry from both the grandsons of Muhammad, Imam Hassan and Imam Hussain, he later migrated to Devanahalli. He claimed his Arab ancestry to the Banu Hashim clan of the Quraish tribe, the tribe of Muhammad, through his ancestor Sayyid walShareef Hassan bin Yahya who was the Sherif of Makkah. His father Sayyid walShareef Muhammad Ali had migrated initially from Shahjahanabad to Bijapur and then finally to Kolar and his grandfather Sayyid walShareef Wali Muhammad from Basra in Iraq to Shahjahanabad for better prospects as he was a mercenary by profession and India was considered a great employment opportunity at that time especially under the Mughals. Fateh Muhammad eventually settled in Mysore and began serving as a soldier with the rank of naik in the army.

At an early age he served as a commander of 50 men in the Rocket artillery of the army of the Nawab of Carnatic, It is believed that he served alongside Zulfiqar Ali Khan the first Nawab of the Carnatic during the Siege of Jinji, which was maintained under the command of the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb in order to kill or capture a renegade Maratha leader named Rajaram.

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