Please note that the content of this book mainly consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free online sources. Asaf Jah VII was the last Nizam (or ruler) of the princely state of Hyderabad and Berar. He ruled Hyderabad from 1911 until 1948, when it was integrated into India. He held the title of His Exalted Highness, the Nizam of Hyderabad. During his time as Nizam, he was considered the richest man in the world, with a fortune estimated at 2 billion US dollars in the early 1940s. He was featured on the cover of TIME magazine and portrayed as such. In 1950, the treasury of the newly independent Union government of India reported an annual income of 1 billion US dollars. It is widely believed that the Nizam remained the richest man in South Asia until his death in 1967, although his wealth had declined to 1 billion US dollars by then and had become the subject of several legal disputes.