A member of the Yaarab Temple, he served as Potentate and was instrumental in the founding of the Scottish Rite Children's Hospital and the Shriners Hospitals for Children.
The Nawab Saadet-Allah of Arcot (1710–1732) established his independence; his successor Dost Ali (1732–1740) conquered and annexed Madura in 1736, and his successors were confirmed in their position as Nawabs of the Carnatic by the Nizam of Hyderabad after that potentate had established his power in southern India.
He was described by the writer Norman Lewis as a Mafia potentate with an inflamed sense of his own importance.