Religious role awaits Pataudi daughter

Delhi-based jewellery designer Saba Ali Khan may soon assume a religious responsibility as the naib mutawalli (chief manager) of Auqaf-e-Shahi, a body that looks after royal Wakf properties, spread in and around Bhopal, of the erstwhile princely state.

Mansur Ali Khan Pataudi, the current mutawalli, has written to the Madhya Pradesh Wakf Board, expressing his desire to appoint his elder daughter as his deputy.

Saba is said to have a bent for religious affairs, and hence more suited to the religious responsibility unlike her siblings.

The Wakf Board will take up for discussion the former test Cricket captain’s application at its board meeting on August 30. The board has been headless since February and could not decide on the application submitted in April, though its approval is said to be only a formality.

Saba, however, will be the first woman from the former royal family to take up the job. In any case, only a royal member is eligible to manage the Wakf properties, which includes mosques, dargahs, orphanages and commercial properties on the Wakf land. The royal family had also built two rubats (lodges) in Mecca and Madina where Haj pilgrims from the state are given free accommodation.

Though some of the properties, like a prime 32-acre-land in the state

capital are disputed, Saba is expected to have a smooth sailing. After all, four begums had ruled the state and most development in the erstwhile state is attributed to them.

Despite their astronomical value, these properties bring meager income like rent.

“She is religious and homely,”Anwar Khan, secretary to the mutawalli (Pataudi), said of Saba. He also said she was keen on taking up the responsibility.