Hatice Hayriye Ayşe Dürrüşehvar Sultan (Ottoman Turkish: خدیجه خیریه عائشه درشهوار سلطان, lit.

Dürrüşehvar Sultan was born on 26 January 1914 at the Çamlıca Palace[4] in Üsküdar, then part of İstanbul, when the Ottoman Caliphate was passing through its last phase.

[7] In 1930,[8] Şehzade Mehmed Abid, son of Sultan Abdul Hamid II and Saliha Naciye Hanım also asked her hand in marriage.

However, her father refused, on the grounds of Dürrüşehvar being under age, but in reality Abdülmecid had already decided to marry her off to the eldest son of the Nizam.

[9] In 1931, her father arranged her marriage to Azam Jah, elder son and heir to Mir Osman Ali Khan (7th Nizam of Hyderabad Deccan).

Upon the intervention of Shaukat Ali, he proposed to offer, for the same mahr, also the hand of Mahpeyker Hanımsultan to the Nizam's younger son Moazzam Jah.

Nilüfer was so beautiful that Moazzam fell in love with her at first sight, and immediately decided to break off his engagement to Mahpeyker to marry her instead.

[13] After the religious ceremony, the newly weds went to the British consulate to complete their civil marriage, and validate their prenuptial agreement, according to which, in the event of divorce or death of the husband, Dürrüşehvar would receive two hundred thousand dollars in compensation.

[14] Following the festivities in Nice, the princesses and their husbands set sail from Venice on 12 December 1931[6] to her father-in-law's court in Hyderabad, India.

Mahatma Gandhi had boarded the ship after attending the Second Round Table Conference in London in 1931, and was travelling back to India.

However, the differences between the two of them eventually led to their marriage falling apart around 1954,[7] and after the divorce, Dürrüşehvar stayed in Hyderabad for some years, then moved to London.

[26] She established a junior college for girls in her name in Yakutpura, Bagh-e-jahan Ara, Hyderabad,[6] and the Osmania General Hospital.

[30] Philip Mason, of the Indian Civil Service, described her as "a commanding figure, handsome of feature, with a clear fair complexion and auburn hair… No one could ignore her or slight her.

Years later, he was declared heir to Hyderabad throne, at the suggestion of his grandfather, and served as honorary aide-de-camp to Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

Nilüfer called one of her friends, Malik Ghulam Muhammad, a former official in the Nizam's Government, who was at that time the Governor-General of Pakistan.

The King agreed to grant the request, and Dürrüşehvar's father was finally buried in Saudi Arabia in the Al-Baqi'.

[34] In 1990, she, her son Mufakkham Jah and his wife Esin attended the Durban Dinner, along with the Indian and Pakistani High Commissioners in London to commemorate the 400th year of the foundation of Hyderabad.