A senior Prince of the Mughal Imperial Family, he was the son of Bahadur Shah Zafar, the last Mughal Emperor, through his wife Rahim Bukhsh Bai Begum.

Other sources suggest that he was poisoned by rivals with symptoms similar to those exhibited by his friend Sir Thomas Metcalfe.

Among his wives was Wazir Khanum, daughter of a rich jeweller and a well-known beauty of the time.

Wazir Khanum had previously been married to Shamshuddin, Nawab of Ferozepur Jhirka, a relative and close friend of Mirza Ghalib, and she had borne Nawab Shamshuddin a son, the noted poet Dagh Dehlvi.

After the Nawab was hanged for plotting and paying for the murder of British officer William Fraser, Wazir Khanum married Fath-ul-Mulk, and he thus became the step-father of Dagh Dehlvi, who would later become a famous poet.