Hyderabad, June 21 -- The institution of Bibi-ka-Alam was created under the Shia Qutb Shahi rulers of Golconda, but it became Hyderabad's pre-eminent public symbol of Muharram through sustained Asaf Jahi patronage, royal endowments, ceremonial participation, and incorporation into the public ritual life of the state.

The Qutb Shahs institutionalised Azadari (the ritual of mourning during Muharram, the first month of the Islamic calendar) as a state-supported practice. Historical traditions maintain that the sacred relic of the Bibi-ka-Alam reached Golconda during the reign of Abdullah Qutb Shah and that the practice of installing the alam, therefore, dates to the Qutb Shahi period. Thus, religious legitimacy, relics, and ritual tradition...