On 29 September in 1904 AD/CE, the Last Nawab of Kingdom (State) of Bahawalpur (later Amir) was born in Derawar Fort, Bahawalpur. He became Nawab at the age of three years old on the death of his father.
He was the only son and heir of Haji Nawab Muhammad Bahawal Khan Abbasi V Bahadur. When only two and a half, his father fell ill and died while at sea off the Aden coast, on 15 February 1907, leaving Sadiq as ruler of Bahawalpur. At the age of 8, he attended the Coronation Darbar in 1911 and commanded his State Imperial Service Camel Corps.
See Also: Abbasid Dynasty Family Tree
In 1923 he was made the President of Council of Regency. The council was abolished in 1924 and he took the reigns of the State of Bahawalpur. His most important contribution was the Sutluj Valley Project that started in 1921. The project was to irrigate the valley of Sutluj River. A pact was signed according to which three headworks were built on the River Sutluj. The expenditure was shared by British and the State of Bahawalpur.
After partition Nawab proved to be very helpful and generous to the government of Pakistan. He gave seventy million rupees to the government and the salaries of all the government departments for one month were also drawn from the treasury of Bahawalpur state. He gifted his private property to the University of the Punjab, King Edward Medical College and the Mosque of Aitchison College, Lahore.
At the time of partition all the princely states of the subcontinent were given a choice to join either Pakistan or India. For convincing Nawab to join India, Pandit Nehru went to him while he was in London and offered various incentives in this regard but he didn’t accept them.
On 5th October 1947 he signed an agreement with the government of Pakistan according to which Bahawalpur State joined Pakistan. Thus the State of Bahawalpur was the first state that joined Pakistan. Moreover, Nawab and Quaid-i-Azam were close friends and they had great respect for each other even before the creation of Pakistan.
In addition, Nawab Sir Sadiq Muhammad Khan V provided all the resources of his state of Bahawalpur to resettle the refugees who migrated from the areas of India where Muslims were in a minority. He also founded a public school and allotted 500 acres of land. Nawab Sir Sadiq Muhammad Khan V founded the Islamic University which later became the Islamia University Bahawalpur which played an important role in providing education and development to the people of the region. He also founded a public school and allotted 500 acres of land.
In May 1966, Nawab Sir Sadiq Muhammad Khan V Abbasi died in London, which ended his long 59 years as Nawab and Amir of Bahawalpur; his body was brought back to Bahawalpur and was buried in his family’s ancestral graveyard at Derawar Fort. His eldest son Haji Muhammad Abbas Khan Abbasi Bahadur succeeded to his father’s title of Nawab of Bahawalpur, but with no administrative power.