Lahore: Encyclopedia II - Lahore - History

Lahore - History

According to a legend, Lahore was named by after Loh a ruler of Lahore in ancient times.

Lahore came under Muslim rule in 713 CE when Umayyad Muslim Arab army led by Muhammad bin Qasim conquered Punjab, and the present Pakistan from Kashmir to the Arabian Sea. Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni placed it under the rule of his governor, Malik Ayaz. When Sultan Qutb-ud-din Aybak was crowned in 1206 here, he became the first Muslim Sultan of the South Asia. From 1524 to 1752 Lahore was part of the Mughal Empire.

During Akbar's rule, Lahore was the capital of the empire from 1584 to 1598. During this time a massive fort, the Lahore Fort, was built on the fundaments of an older fort in the 1560s. This fort was later extended by Jahangir and Shah Jahan. The last of the great Mughals, Aurangzeb, ruling from 1658 to 1707, built the city's most famous monuments, the Badshahi Masjid and the Alamgiri Gate next to the Lahore Fort. The Muslim technocrats, bureaucrats, soldiers, traders, scientists, architects, teachers, theologians and sufis flocked from the rest of the Muslim world to Islamic Sultanate in South Asia and many settled in Lahore.

The Sikhs ruled it in the 18th and 19th centuries, making Lahore the capital of Sikh state. However the last bloody Anglo-Sikh war resulted in a British victory thus bringing Lahore under the rule of the British crown. In 1947Pakistan gained independence from British colonial rule. At the time of independence, Lahore was heavily affected by large-scale riots between Muslims, Hindus, and Sikhs.

The famous British author and poet, Joseph Rudyard Kipling, lived in Lahore during the 1880s, where his parents were also working. Kipling began working as an editor for a local newspaper and continued tentative steps into the world of poetry; his first professional sales were in 1883.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki