Hyderabad, Mar 16: Mohammed Safiullah, an enthusiastic collector of the rare Nizam photographs in Andhra Pradesh''s Hyderabad, is the proud owner of the photographs of the seven Nizams who ruled the state for two centuries till Indian independence in 1947.

If 42-year-old historian Safiullah is to be believed, Mir Mohammad Ali Khan was the first Indian ruler to be photographed. According to him, before that, only miniature paintings existed.

He added that the first pictures of the Hyderabad city date back to 1850''s.

According to Safiullah''s research, the erstwhile royals used to invite photographers from bigger cities like Bombay and Calcutta.

" I have in my collection roughly about 7000 pictures of Hyderabad between 1850-1950, and I think there are a lot of people also having them. But they normally would not be showing. I have arranged my collection in a systematic manner and written a number of articles on them," said Safiullah.

Safiullah, has nurtured the hobby of collecting rare photographs and coins since the tender age of 11.

He has a rich collection of more than 7000 pictures of the Nizams and over 20,000 coins that provide information about Hyderabad ever since it started minting coins in 1603 AD. (ANI)