Lahore: the story on HearLore

Lahore

Lahore is the capital and largest city of the Pakistani province of Punjab, yet its identity as the City of Gardens is a title earned through centuries of imperial patronage and modern resilience. This metropolis, home to over 14 million people, stands as the second-largest city in Pakistan and the 27th largest in the world, serving as a vital industrial, educational, and economic hub. Its history stretches back two millennia, but it was not until the late 10th century that the city rose to prominence with the establishment of its fortified interior, known today as the Walled City. The name itself remains a subject of historical debate, with early Muslim historians recording variations such as Luhawar, Lūhār, and Rahwar, while the Persian polymath Abu Rayhan al-Biruni referred to it as Luhāwar in his 11th-century work, Qanun. One enduring legend attributes the city's founding to Prince Lava, the son of Sita and Rama, suggesting the name derives from Lavpur or Lavapuri, the City of Lava, though this mythological account contrasts with the archaeological reality of a city that has been inhabited for around two millennia. The city's location along the River Ravi, known as the Iravati River in the Vedas, has been central to its existence, with theories suggesting the name Lahore is a corruption of Ravāwar, a simplified pronunciation of Iravatyāwar. Despite the ambiguity of its early origins, the city has consistently served as a cultural and academic center, attracting poets and scholars from across the medieval Muslim world and later becoming the heart of the wider Punjab region.

Empires of Stone and Steel

The city's rise to global prominence began in the 11th century when Sultan Mahmud conquered Lahore between 1020 and 1027, making it part of the Ghaznavid Empire. He appointed Malik Ayaz as its governor in 1021, and under the reign of Sultan Ibrahim, the city was rebuilt and repopulated after being devastated by the invasion. Malik Ayaz erected city walls and a masonry fort between 1037 and 1040 on the ruins of a previous structure, creating a defensive perimeter that would define the city's layout for centuries. Lahore became the eastern capital of the Ghaznavid Empire in 1152 and the sole capital after the fall of Ghazni in 1163, transforming into a cultural and academic center renowned for poetry. The city's fortunes fluctuated with the rise and fall of successive dynasties, including the Mamluk dynasty, which began in 1186 when the Ghurid ruler Muhammad captured the city. Under the Delhi Sultanate, Lahore served as the first capital, attracting poets and scholars from the medieval Muslim world, with more poets writing in Persian than any other city. However, the threat of Mongol invasions and political instability caused future sultans to regard Delhi as a safer capital, leaving Lahore as a frontier city. The Mongols sacked the city in 1241, and although it was reconquered by Sultan Balban in 1266, the region became a city on a frontier, with the administrative center shifting south to Dipalpur. The city was sacked again in 1298 and 1305, and by the time the Mongol conqueror Timur captured it in 1398, it was no longer wealthy. The city's history is a testament to its strategic importance, as it was captured and recaptured by various powers, including the Khokhars, the Sayyid dynasty, and the Lodi dynasty, each leaving their mark on the city's architectural and cultural landscape.

What is the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab?

Lahore is the capital and largest city of the Pakistani province of Punjab. It serves as a vital industrial, educational, and economic hub for the region.

When was Lahore established as a fortified city?

Lahore rose to prominence in the late 10th century with the establishment of its fortified interior known today as the Walled City. Malik Ayaz erected city walls and a masonry fort between 1037 and 1040 on the ruins of a previous structure.

Who founded the city of Lahore according to legend?

One enduring legend attributes the city's founding to Prince Lava, the son of Sita and Rama, suggesting the name derives from Lavpur or Lavapuri. This mythological account contrasts with the archaeological reality of a city that has been inhabited for around two millennia.

When did the British East India Company seize control of Lahore?

The British East India Company seized control of Lahore in February 1846 from the collapsing Sikh state. Punjab was then annexed to the British Indian Empire in 1849.

When was Lahore awarded to Pakistan during Partition?

On the 17th of August 1947, Lahore was awarded to Pakistan on the basis of its Muslim majority in the 1941 census. It was made capital of the Punjab province in the new state of Pakistan.

The Mughal Golden Age

The establishment of Mughal rule in the 16th century led to the most prosperous era of Lahore's history, with the city becoming the capital of the Mughal Empire under Emperor Akbar in 1584. Akbar began re-fortifying the city's ruined citadel, laying the foundations for the revival of the Lahore Fort, and made Lahore one of his original twelve subah provinces. During the reign of Emperor Jahangir, Lahore's bazaars were vibrant, frequented by foreigners, and stocked with a wide array of goods. In 1606, Jahangir's rebel son Khusrau Mirza laid siege to Lahore, and the roots of Mughal-Sikh animosity grew when Sikh Guru Arjan Dev was executed in the city that same year. Emperor Jahangir chose to be buried in Lahore, and his tomb was built in the Shahdara Bagh suburb in 1637 by his wife Nur Jahan, whose tomb is also nearby. The city's prosperity and central position have yielded more Mughal-era monuments in Lahore than either Delhi or Agra. Shah Jahan, who was born in Lahore in 1592, renovated large portions of the Lahore Fort with luxurious white marble and erected the iconic Naulakha Pavilion in 1633. He lavished Lahore with some of its most celebrated and iconic monuments, such as the Shalamar Gardens in 1641. His Punjabi viceroy and royal physician Wazir Khan also built a number of monuments in the city, including the extravagantly decorated Wazir Khan Mosque, the Wazir Khan Baradari, and the Shahi Hammam. The population of pre-modern Lahore probably reached its zenith during his reign, with suburban districts home to perhaps six times as many people compared to within the Walled City. Aurangzeb, the last of the great Mughal Emperors, further contributed to the development of Lahore, building the Alamgiri Bund embankment along the Ravi river in 1662 to prevent its shifting course from threatening the city's walls. The largest of Lahore's Mughal monuments, the Badshahi Mosque, was raised during Aurangzeb's reign in 1673, as well as the iconic Alamgiri Gate of the Lahore Fort in 1674.

The Sikh Restoration and Decline

Following the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, civil wars regarding succession to the Mughal throne led to weakening control over Lahore from Delhi, and a prolonged period of decline in the city. The Mughal Empire's preoccupation with the Marathas in the Deccan Plateau eventually resulted in Lahore being governed by a series of governors who pledged nominal allegiance to the ever-weaker Mughal emperors in Delhi. Nader Shah's brief invasion of the Mughal Empire in early 1739 wrested control away from Zakariya Khan Bahadur, and although Khan was able to win back control after the Persian armies had left, the trade routes had shifted away from Lahore, and south towards Kandahar instead. The Durrani ruler Ahmad Shah occupied Lahore in 1748, and the city was conquered multiple times by Ahmad Shah Durrani, with the Durranis invading two more times in 1797 and 1798 under Shah Zaman. By the end of the 18th century, the city's population had drastically declined, with its remaining residents living within the city walls, while the extramural suburbs lay abandoned. In the aftermath of Zaman Shah's 1799 invasion of Punjab, Ranjit Singh, of nearby Gujranwala, began to consolidate his position. Singh was able to seize control of the region after a series of battles with the Bhangi chiefs who had seized Lahore in 1780. His army marched to Anarkali, where according to tradition, the gatekeeper of the Lohari Gate, Mukham Din Chaudhry, opened the gates allowing Ranjit Singh's army to enter Lahore. After capturing Lahore, Sikh soldiers immediately began plundering Muslim areas of the city until their actions were reined in by Ranjit Singh. Ranjit Singh's rule restored some of Lahore's lost grandeur, but at the expense of destroying the remaining Mughal architecture for building materials. He established a mint in the city in 1800, and moved into the Mughal palace at the Lahore Fort after repurposing it for his own use in governing the Sikh Empire. By 1812, Singh had mostly refurbished the city's defences by adding a second circuit of outer walls surrounding Akbar's original walls, with the two separated by a moat. Singh also partially restored Shah Jahan's decaying Shalimar Gardens and built the Hazuri Bagh Baradari in 1818 to celebrate his capture of the Koh-i-Noor diamond from Shuja Shah Durrani in 1813. Under Ranjit Singh's rule, Mughal monuments suffered during the Sikh period as his armies plundered most of Lahore's most precious Mughal monuments, and stripped the white marble from several monuments to send to different parts of the Sikh Empire during his reign. Monuments plundered for decorative materials include the Tomb of Asif Khan, the Tomb of Nur Jahan, and the Shalimar Gardens. Ranjit Singh's army also desecrated the Badshahi Mosque by converting it into an ammunition depot and a stable for horses.

The British Raj and Colonial Transformation

The British East India Company seized control of Lahore in February 1846 from the collapsing Sikh state and occupied the rest of Punjab in 1848. Following the defeat of the Sikhs at the Battle of Gujrat, British troops formally deposed Maharaja Duleep Singh in Lahore that same year. Punjab was then annexed to the British Indian Empire in 1849. At the commencement of British rule, Lahore was estimated to have a population of 120,000, and by the turn of the twentieth century, Lahore's population had nearly doubled from what it had been when the province was first annexed, growing from an estimated 120,000 people in 1849 to over 200,000 in 1901. The British viewed Lahore's Walled City as a bed of potential social discontent and disease epidemics, and so largely left the inner city alone, while focusing development efforts in Lahore's suburban areas and Punjab's fertile countryside. The colonial state made its most significant investments in suburban tracts outside of cities, and the inner districts of its largest cities were almost entirely left alone. The British instead laid out their capital city in an area south of the Walled City that would first come to be known as Donald's Town before being renamed Civil Station. Under early British rule, formerly prominent Mughal-era monuments that were scattered throughout Civil Station were also re-purposed and sometimes desecrated. The Tomb of Anarkali, which the British had initially converted to clerical offices before re-purposing it as an Anglican church in 1851, is one such case. The 17th-century Dai Anga Mosque was converted into railway administration offices during this time, the tomb of Nawab Bahadur Khan was converted into a storehouse, and the tomb of Mir Mannu was used as a wine shop. The British also used older structures to house municipal offices, such as the Civil Secretariat, Public Works Department, and Accountant General's Office. The British built the Lahore Railway Station just outside the Walled City shortly after the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857; the station was therefore styled as a mediaeval castle to ward off any potential future uprisings, with thick walls, turrets, and holes to direct gun and cannon fire for the defence of the structure. Lahore's most prominent government institutions and commercial enterprises came to be concentrated in Civil Station in a half-mile wide area flanking The Mall, where unlike in Lahore's military zone, the British and locals were allowed to mix. The British also laid the spacious Lahore Cantonment to the southeast of the Walled City at the former village of Mian Mir, where unlike around The Mall, laws did exist against the mixing of different races. Lahore was visited on the 9th of February 1870 by Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, and British authorities built several important structures around the time of the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887 in the distinctive Indo-Saracenic style, including the Lahore Museum and Mayo School of Industrial Arts.

The Partition and Modern Resilience

Lahore played an important role in the independence movements of both India and Pakistan, with the Declaration of the Independence of India being moved by Jawaharlal Nehru and passed unanimously at midnight on the 31st of December 1929 at Lahore's Bradlaugh Hall. The Indian Swaraj flag was adopted this time as well, and Lahore's jail was used by the British to imprison independence activists such as Jatin Das, and was also where Bhagat Singh was hanged in 1931. Under the leadership of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the All India Muslim League passed the Lahore Resolution in 1940, demanding the creation of Pakistan as a separate homeland for the Muslims of India. The future of the city of Lahore was fiercely contested during partition, and according to the 1941 census, the city of Lahore had a population of 671,659, of which 64.5% was Muslim, with the remainder 35% being Hindu and Sikh, alongside a small Christian community. This population figure was disputed by Hindus and Sikhs before the Boundary Commission that would draw the Radcliffe Line to demarcate the border of the two new states based on religious demography, who argued that the city was only 54% Muslim based on 1945 ration card figures. Two-thirds of shops, and 80% of Lahore's factories belonged to the Hindu and Sikh community. As tensions grew over the city's uncertain fate, Lahore experienced Partition's worst riots, and carnage ensued in which all three religious groups were both victims and perpetrators. Early riots in March and April 1947 destroyed 6,000 of Lahore's 82,000 homes, and violence continued to rise throughout the summer, despite the presence of armoured British personnel. Hindus and Sikhs began to leave the city en masse as their hopes that the Boundary Commission would award the city to India came to be regarded as increasingly unlikely. By late August 1947, 66% of Hindus and Sikhs had left the city, and the Shah Alami Bazaar, once a largely Hindu quarter of the Walled City, was entirely burnt down during subsequent rioting. When Pakistan's independence was declared on the 14th of August 1947, the Radcliffe Line had not yet been announced, and so cries of Long live Pakistan and God is greatest were heard intermittently with Long live Hindustan throughout the night. On the 17th of August 1947, Lahore was awarded to Pakistan on the basis of its Muslim majority in the 1941 census and was made capital of the Punjab province in the new state of Pakistan. The city's location near the Indian border meant that it received large numbers of refugees fleeing eastern Punjab and northern India, though it was able to accommodate them given the large stock of abandoned Hindu and Sikh properties that could be re-distributed to newly arrived refugees. Partition left Lahore with a much-weakened economy, and a stymied social and cultural scene that had previously been invigorated by the city's Hindus and Sikhs. Industrial production dropped to one-third of pre-Partition level by the end of the 1940s, and only 27% of its manufacturing units were operating by 1950, and usually well-below capacity. Capital flight further weakened the city's economy while Karachi industrialised and became more prosperous. The city's weakened economy, and proximity to the Indian border, meant that the city was deemed unsuitable to be the Pakistani capital after independence, and Karachi was therefore chosen to be the capital on account of its relative tranquility during the Partition period, stronger economy, and better infrastructure. After independence, Lahore slowly regained its significance as an economic and cultural centre of western Punjab, with reconstruction beginning in 1949 of the Shah Alami Bazaar, the former Hindu-dominated commercial heart of the Walled City prior to its destruction in the 1947 riots.