Inheritance, Marriage and Adoption: Changing Judicial Practices in Hyderabad State

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Although Hindu banking firms in Hyderabad state had an advantage over Muslim ones because Hindu law allowed adoptions while Islamic law did not, adoptions were nonetheless a source of great conflict and division for firms. Before the late nineteenth century, inheritance practices in Hyderabad privileged both Hindu and Muslim nobles and officials, but as Hyderabad’s courts and advocates began to be connected to courts and advocates based in British India, contesting family members turned from the family and customary law generally administered in Hyderabad to the evolving standardisation of Hindu and Islamic law in British India. Hyderabad’s government, however, continued to privilege Hindu and Muslim nobles well into the twentieth century, although more research is needed about changing judicial practices in Hyderabad and other native states.