History of lahore

Lahore street in the 19th century

Legends based on oral traditions say that Lahore was named after , the son of the Hindu god Rama , who allegedly founded the city. Until now, the Lahore fortress has an empty temple dedicated to Lava. Similarly, the Ravi River , which flows through northern Lahore, was named after the Hindu goddess Durga ^[1] .

Ptolemy , a famous astronomer and geographer, mentions in his “ Geography ” a city called Labokla ^[2] , located on the path between the Indus and Palibotra or Pataliputra ( Patna ), in the vast country called Casperia ( Kashmir ), described as stretching along the Bidastes rivers or Vitasta ( Jhelam ), Sandabal or Chandra Bhaga ( Chinab ), and Adris or Iravati ( Ravi ).

The oldest authentic document about Lahore, written anonymously in 982, is called Khudud al-Alam ^[3] . It was translated into English by Vladimir Fedorovich Minorsky and published in Lahore in 1927. In this document, Lahore is called a small “ shahr ” (city) with “impressive temples, large markets and huge gardens.” He writes about “two large markets around which there are dwellings”, and also refers to “clay walls surrounding these two settlements, making one of them. ”The original document is currently in the British Museum ^[4] .

Lahore is of Rajput origin. It is believed that the earliest rulers were traditional Rajputs. Xuanzang , a Chinese traveler who visited the Punjab in 630, described a large city with many thousands of families, mainly Brahmins , located on the eastern border of the kingdom of Cheka, which, he said, stretched from the Indus to Bias .

Many historians believe that Lahore was founded by an ancient Hindu colony somewhere between the first and seventh century, probably already at the beginning of the second; soon became a significant city, the ancestor of other colonies, and, in the end, the capital of a powerful principality, to which he gave the name. There are several reasons to argue that the old Hindu city of Lahore was not located on the site of a modern city. Tradition indicates the location of old Lahore near Ichkhra - which is now part of the city - but used to be a village about three miles to the west. The name of the village was Icchra Lahore . In addition, some of the oldest and most sacred Hindu shrines are located in this area, namely Bhairo ka sthain and Chandrat ^[5] .

The outpost of the current city, known as the Lahore Gate , was so named, being the gate looking towards Lokhavara or old Lahore, as the Kashmir Gate looks towards Kashmir , and the Delhi Gate of modern Delhi into the ancient city with that name. No architectural traces of the old Hindu Lahore have been preserved, which can be explained by the lack of stone material, as well as by the numerous destructive invasions to which the city was subjected. On the other hand, this is in accordance with what all Indian architectural scholars are inclined to show, namely, that the northern Indians did not, until a relatively late period, have the habit of building temples or durable buildings of any kind. Even in Delhi, which was the center of Hindu dynasties, starting over a thousand years BC until more than a thousand years after where there is an abundance of stone, there are no examples of Hindu architecture dating back to the tenth or eleventh century ^[6] .

During the first Muslim conquests, Lahore was in the possession of the Rajput king Prithviraj Chauhan , from the Ajmer dynasty. Either due to the change of dynasty, or due to the open location of Lahore on the big road from Afghanistan to India, he was subsequently abandoned, and the residence of the government was moved to Siyalkot or its environs, where it remained until the period of the conquest of Sultan Mahmud Ghaznevi in the early eleventh century. The conqueror re-occupied the deserted city and created a garrison in the fortress, which was probably built, like the Old Fort in Delhi, on the ruins of the old Rajput citadel.

In 682, according to Ferishte , the Pashtun Kerman and Peshawar , who, already in that early period, embraced Islam , conquered some territories from the Hindu prince. During the war, seventy battles took place with varying success, until the Pashtuns, forming an alliance with the Gakhars , a wild tribe living on the Salt Range , forced the Rajah to cede part of its territory. The next mention of Lahore is in the annals of Rajputana , where the Rajput clan from Lahore is referred to as uniting to defend Chittorgarh when he was besieged by Muslim troops in the early ninth century.

Finally, in 975 AD, the Sultan Sebuk-Tegin , the ruler of the Great Khorasan and the father of the famous Sultan Mahmud Ghaznevi, advanced further than the Indus. He was met by , the Raja of Lahore, whose power is said to extend from Sirhind to Laghman and from Kashmir to Multan . On the advice of the Rajput clan of Bhati, Jayapala entered into an alliance with the Pashtuns, and their help allowed them to withstand the first invasion. However, Sebuk-Tegin later repeated his campaign. The battle in the vicinity of Laghman ended in the defeat of the Rajah and an attempt to make peace. His terms were accepted, and Sebuk-Tegin sent people for ransom. Upon reaching Lahore, Jaipal showed himself to be untrustworthy and imprisoned the envoys, intending to get paid. Upon learning of the level of his treachery, Sebuk-Tegin, according to Ferishta, “hurried toward the Hindustan like a foaming stream” ^[7] . Other battles followed, in which Jaipala was defeated again and retreated, leaving the territory west of Nilab and Indus in the hands of the invaders. The invader did not retain the conquests that he made due to the fact that in 1008 AD, an alliance led by Anandapala , the son of Raja Jayapal, again met the advancing army, now under the command of Mahmoud, the son and successor of Sebuk-Tegin, in the immediate vicinity of Peshawar . Lahore was allowed to remain untouched for another thirteen years. Anandapalu was succeeded by Narjanpal, while Mahmud advanced in his conquests to Hindustan. But in 1022, he suddenly moved down from Kashmir, captured Lahore without resistance, and sacked it. ^{[8] The} powerless Narjanpal fled to Ajmer , and the Hindu principality of Lahore was destroyed forever. The last attempt to restore lost sovereignty was made by the Indians in the reign of Modud in 1045, but after an unsuccessful six months of siege, they retreated without much success. ^[9]

There are only a few mentions of Lahore in the time before its capture by Sultan Mahmoud Ghaznevi in ​​the eleventh century. In 1021, Mahmud seated Malik Ayaz on the throne and made Lahore the capital of the Ghaznavid empire . Sultan Mahmoud Ghaznevi took Lahore after a long siege and battle, in which the city was set on fire and completely depopulated. As the first Muslim ruler of Lahore, Ayaz rebuilt and settled the city. During his reign, the city became a cultural and scientific center famous for its poetry. The tomb of Malik Ayaz can still be seen in the commercial area of ​​the city - Rank Mahal.

After the fall of the Ghaznavid empire, various Muslim dynasties known as the Delhi Sultanate ruled in Lahore, including the Khalji , Tuglakids , Sayyids , Lodi and Surids . ^[10] When Sultan Qutb ad-din Aibak was crowned in Lahore in 1206, he became the first Muslim Sultan in South Asia. ^[11] In 1524, Lahore became part of the Mughal Empire .

The Fall of the Sultanate

The last ruler from the Lodi dynasty, Sultan Ibrahim Shah Lodi , came into conflict with the Pashtun nobility. After the death of his father, Sultan Sikandar Shah Lodi, he crushed a brief rebellion led by several of his nobles, who wanted his younger brother Jalal Khan to become the sultan. Having seized the throne after the death of his brother, he never managed to pacify his nobles. Subsequently, Daulat Khan, the ruler of the Punjab, and Alam Khan, his uncle, sent Babur , the ruler of Kabul , an invitation to invade Delhi.

The first battle of Panipat (1526) was fought between the forces of Babur and the Delhi Sultanate. Ibrahim Lodi was killed on the battlefield. Through superior military art, vast experience in warfare, effective strategy and the proper use of artillery, Babur won the First Battle of Panipat and subsequently occupied Agra and Delhi.

In 1241, the ancient city of Lahore was captured by the thirty thousand cavalry of the Mongol army, the entire population was killed, and the city was completely destroyed. There was not a single building or monument in Lahore that preceded the Mongol destruction. ^[12] In 1266, Sultan Giyas ad-din Balban conquered Lahore, but from 1296 to 1305 the Mongols again flooded northern Punjab. In 1298, the two hundred thousandth Mongol army subjugated the Punjab and moved to Delhi, but was brutally defeated by the Delhi Sultanate. The new Mughal dynasty ruled India for another 300 years. ^[13]

Lahore reached its zenith during the reign of the Mughals from 1524 to 1752. The Mughals, who were known as builders, gave Lahore some of its finest architectural monuments, many of which have survived today.

Lahore grew up under Emperor Babur from 1584 to 1598; under the emperors Akbar the Great and Jahangir , the city was the capital of the empire. The beauty of Lahore charmed the English poet John Milton , who wrote "Agra and Lahore, the center of the Great Mughals" in 1670 ^[14] . At this time, a grand Lahore fortress was built. Several buildings within the fortress were added by the son of Akbar, Mughal emperor Jahangir, who was subsequently buried in the city. The son of Jahangir, Shah Jahan , was born in Lahore. He, like his father, expanded the Lahore fortress and built many other structures in the city, including the Shalimar Gardens. The last of the great Mughals, Aurangzeb , who ruled from 1658 to 1707, built the most famous monuments of the city, in the Badshahi Mosque and the Alamgiri gate near the Lahore fortress.

In the 17th century, when the Mughal power declined, Lahore was often seized and state power was absent. The 1740s were years of chaos, and the city had nine different rulers between 1745 and 1756. The great Punjabi poet Baba Varis Shah said about the situation, “ khada peeta wahy da, baqi Ahmad Shahy da ” - “we have nothing, moreover, what we eat and wear, all other things belong to Ahmad Shah. ” Ahmad Shah Durrani captured the remnants of the Mughal empire and established consolidated control over the Punjab and Kashmir in 1761 ^[15] .

Invasions of invaders and chaos in local governments allowed gangs of warring Sikhs to gain control in some areas. The Sikhs gained strength with tremendous speed. In 1801, the twelve Sikh misals united into one to form a new empire and sovereign Sikh state under the rule of Maharaja Ranjit Singh ^[16] .

At the beginning of Aurangzeb's reign, various insurgent Sikh groups involved the Mughal forces in increasingly bloody battles. In 1670, the ninth Sikh Guru, Tegh Bahadur , camped in Delhi, gaining a large number of followers who were said to attract the wrath of Emperor Aurangzeb. After the fall of the Mughal empire, the Sikhs invaded and occupied Lahore. The execution of Guru Teg Bahadur infuriated them. In response, his son and heir, the tenth guru of Sikhism, Guru Gobind Singh , further militarized his followers.

In the 1740s, frequent invasions by Afghans led by Ahmad Shah Abdali created chaos in local governments and made life very disturbing for the citizens of Lahore. Misal Bhangi was the fist of Sikh groups that invaded and plundered the Mughal Lahore. Later, Ranjit Singh managed to make progress in this chaos. He defeated Abdali’s grandson, Zeman Shah, in the battle between Lahore and Amritsar. Outside of the chaos of the Afghan and Sikh conflicts, Ranjit Singh was able to unite the Sikh factions and capture Lahore, where he was crowned emperor. Many guests of Lahore during this era noted that most of the city was in poor condition, and many of its Muslim monuments and mosques were looted and desecrated by the Sikhs ^[17] . The lands, palaces and houses of Muslim nobility were confiscated by Sikh sardars. Marble and precious stones were collected from Muslim buildings, including the Shalimar Gardens , and Sikh houses to create the Golden Temple in Amritsar and other Sikh sacred sites.

In 1762, the Sikh army entered Lahore and occupied the Shahid Ganj mosque . Muslims were forbidden to enter and pray in mosques. The Sikhs built the Gurdwara Temple in the courtyard and used the mosque as a home for Sikh priests. On July 7, 1799, by the Sikh militia, under the leadership of Ranjit Singh, Lahore was captured and plundered ^[18] . The Badshahi Mosque passed to the Sikhs, and Muslims were forbidden to pray in it. After capturing the city, the mosque was seriously damaged, as Ranjit Singh used her huge yard as a stable for the horses of his army and her 80 hujras (small training rooms surrounding the courtyard) as premises for his soldiers and as a warehouse for military supplies. Ranjit Singh used the Hazuri Bagh Baradari , a fenced garden next to the mosque, as his official royal court for audiences. ^[19]

At that time, most of the Lahore structures of the Mughal era lay in ruins until the end of the eighteenth century due to the destruction and robbery of the Sikhs of Misal Bhanga. The death of Ranjit Singh on June 27, 1839 ultimately ended his reign, while the rule of the Sikhs continued until the British gained control of the empire in 1849.

Sayyid Ahmad Barelvi , a Muslim nationalist, received desperate pleas for help from the persecuted Muslims of the Punjabi region . Muslims were forbidden to convene Azan , and the lands belonging to the wakuf donations, which provided financial support to Muslim institutions, were confiscated by the Sikhs. Sayyid Ahmad Barelvi with many supporters spent two years organizing massive and material support for his Punjabi campaign. He carefully created a network of people throughout India to raise funds and encourage volunteers, traveling to various places throughout India and attracting followers among the pious Muslims. In December 1826, Said Ahmad and his followers clashed with the Sikh troops at Okara , but without a decisive result. In a major battle near the city of Balakota in 1831, Said Ahmad and Shah Ismail Shahid with Muslim volunteers were defeated by a professional Sikh army and were martyred.

In 1841, during the Sikh civil war, Ranjit Singh’s son, Sher Singh, used the big minarets of the Badshahi mosque to house zamburahs (light cannons) to bombard the supporters of the Sikh Maharani Chand Kaur, who took refuge in the besieged Lahore fortress , which caused great damage to the fortresses. In one of these bombings, the fortress Divan-e-Aam (Public Audience Hall) was destroyed (it was later restored by the British, but never returned its original architectural splendor) ^[20] . At this time, Henri de la Roche, a French cavalry officer recruited into the army of Cher Singh, used the tunnel connecting the Badshahi mosque to the Lahore fortress for temporary storage of gunpowder ^[21] .

Maharaja Ranjit Singh made Lahore his capital and was able to expand his kingdom to the Khyber Pass , and also included Jammu and Kashmir , keeping the British from expanding their borders across the Sutledge River for more than 40 years. After his death in 1839, an internecine struggle between the Sikhs, several rapid loss of territory by his sons, along with intrigues of the ogres and two Anglo-Sikh wars, ultimately led to British control in Lahore ten years later. For the British, Punjab was a border province because Lahore had borders with Afghanistan and Persia . Therefore, the Punjabis, unlike the Bengalis and Sindhi , were not allowed to use their native language as an official. The British first introduced Urdu as the official language in Punjab ^{[22] [23]} , including Lahore, allegedly because of fear of Punjabi nationalism. During the reign of British colonial rule, Punjabi Muslims began the restoration and restoration of Muslim monuments occupied, damaged and destroyed by Sikhs during their reign in the Punjab region.

The British occupation of Lahore took place in a protracted but coordinated manner. Taking advantage of the unrest surrounding the struggle for inheritance after the death of Ranjit Singh , and only partially weakening in the war , fighting against the Sikhs on their eastern borders, the British entered Lahore in February 1846 and deployed their troops in the fortress. Two unstable years later, they were embroiled in a second war with the Sikhs in the southern city of Multan , when the governor of that city, Mul Raj, called for his troops to revolt. After a series of battles, the Sikh army was finally defeated at the Battle of Gujarat, sixty miles north of Lahore. In March 1848, after the victory of the British, Dalip Singh , the minor son and heir to the throne of Ranjit Singh, was officially deposed in Lahore. The Sikh regiments remaining in the city were suddenly transferred to the reserve and camped outside the city, demanding severance pay. During the year, Punjab was formally annexed to the British Empire.

Under British rule (1849-1947), colonial architecture in Lahore combined Mughal , Gothic and Victorian styles. The General Post Office (GPO) and the YMCA building in Lahore were built in honor of Queen Victoria’s golden anniversary, an event marked by the construction of clock towers and monuments throughout India. Other important British buildings included the Supreme Court, , museums , the National College of Art (NCA), Montgomery Hall, Tollinton Market and Punjab University (old campus). ^[24] Under British rule, Sir Ganga Ram (sometimes called the father of modern Lahore) designed and built the General Post Office, Lahore Museum, Aitschison College, Mayo School of Art (now NCA), Ganga Ram Hospital, Lady McLagan High School for Girls, Department of Chemistry, Government College, wing Alberta Victor Mayo Hospital, a home for the disabled on Ravi Road and Lady Maynard Industrial School ^[25] . For fun, the British popularized equestrian sports in Lahore and founded the Lahore Racing Club (LRC) in 1924.

Lahore has a special place in the history of the Pakistan movement and the Indian national liberation movement . In 1929, a meeting of the Indian National Congress was held in Lahore. At this congress, Pandit Nehru put forward a resolution of “complete independence”, adopted unanimously at midnight on December 31, 1929 ^[26] . On this occasion, the modern tricolor flag of India (with a chakra in its center) was raised as a national flag, and thousands of people welcomed it.

Lahore Prison was the place where revolutionary freedom fighters were detained. One of them, Jatin Das , died in Lahore prison after starving for 63 days in protest of the brutal treatment of political prisoners by the British. Bhagat Singh , a martyr who fought for Indian independence, was hanged in Lahore Prison.

The most important meeting of the All-India , later Pakistani Muslim League , the main party fighting for the independence of India and the creation of Pakistan, was held in Lahore in 1940 ^[28] . Muslims led by Qa'id-i-Azam demanded a separate country for the Muslims of India in a document known as the Pakistan Resolution or Lahore Resolution . During this meeting, Muhammad Ali Jinn , the leader of the league, first publicly proposed the theory of two nations .

Mostly Muslim, the population supported the Muslim League and the Pakistan movement . After gaining independence in 1947, a smaller part of Hindus and Sikhs migrated to India, while Muslim refugees from India settled in Lahore .

Lahore is considered the heart of Pakistan and is currently the capital of the Punjab province. Almost immediately after independence, large-scale riots broke out among Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus, causing many deaths and damage to historical monuments, including in the Lahore fortress, Badshahi mosque and various buildings of the colonial era. With United Nations assistance, the government was able to restore Lahore, and most of the scars of intercommunal violence since independence were erased. Less than 20 years later, however, Lahore again became a battleground in the 1965 war . The battlefield and trenches today can still be observed near the border in Wagaha .

After gaining independence, Lahore was relegated to the background by the city of Karachi , which quickly became the largest and most industrialized city in Pakistan. This lasted until the administration of the Mian brothers and the unrest in Karachi in the 1990s came to power, after which Lahore regained its importance as an economic and cultural center during state reforms. A second Islamic summit conference was held in the city ^[29] . And in 1996, the final match of the World Cricket Championship , organized by the International Cricket Council , took place at the Gaddafi Stadium .

The old city, known locally as Andrun Shehr (Inner City), is the oldest and most historically significant part of Lahore. In 2009, the Punjab government launched a major project to restore the Royal Trail (Shahi Guzar Gah) from the gates of Akbury to the Lahore Fortress with the help of the World Bank as part of the Sustainable Development Project of the Lahore Old City (SDWCL). The project aims at restoring the Old City, exploring and highlighting its economic potential as a cultural heritage, exploring and highlighting the benefits of the SWDCL project for residents, and requesting proposals for maintaining the restoration and preservation of the Old Town.

Today, Lahore is a three-in-one city. Each part of it differs from the other in one way or another. The old city - existing for at least a thousand years - was built in and around the ring road. Likewise, the British built up Lahore, covering the area from Mayo Hospital to the in the east. The third Lahore, which includes various chic areas, such as and along with several others, was built after independence. The main residential area and administrative unit of Lahore is . This is one of the oldest aristocratic regions of Lahore, located in the city center ^[30] .