Jin'neee Lahore Nahien Wekheia O'o Jamiya ie Nahiennn!!!
With a population of more than 2.5 million, Lahore is
Pakistan's second largest city. It occupies a choice site in
the midst of fertile alluvial plains. Ptolemy's "Geographia",
written about AD I50, refers to it as "Labokla" and locates
it with reference to the Indus, the Ravi, the Jhelum and the
Chenab rivers.
Badshahi Mosque, Lahore
The city next crops up in literature in connection with the
campaigns of the Turkish dynast Mahmud of Ghazni against the
Rajas of Lahore between I00I and I008. Around this time it
established itself as the capital of the Punjab and
thereafter began to play an important and growing role as a
centre of Muslim power and influence in the subcontinent.
Its heyday was the Mughal era from the early sixteenth
century onwards and,
as Mughal power began to decline in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, Lahore suffered a concomitant period
of ignominy and political eclipse. It was here, at the
beginning of the nineteenth century, that the Sikh ruler
Ranjit Singh declared himself Maharajah of the Punjab and
allowed his troops to desecrate many of the city's beautiful
Islamic shrines- including the Badshahi Mosque which was,
for a while, converted into a powder magazine. By the time
British occupied Lahore in I849, one writer moved to
describe the city as 'a mere expanse of crumbling ruins'.
Minar-e-Pakistan, Lahore
Happily, this was an exaggeration and today the great
buildings laid down by the long-vanished Mughal emperors may
be seen in much of their original splendour. All the adverse
influences since then seem to have been washed away, like
sediment carried off by a flood, leaving behind the
fundamental character and beauty of this old Islamic
settlement.
Fittingly, it was here in I940 that the Muslim League made
its first formal demand for the establishment of a Muslim
homeland. A towering and graceful monument, the Minar-e-Pakistan
now stands on the site of the passing of the Pakistan
Resolution.
Lahore Fort, Lahore
Nearby, the massively fortified walls of Lahore Fort speak
eloquently of the centuries of passing history that they
have witnessed. The fort antedates the coming of Mahmud of
Ghazn i in the eleventh century, was ruined by the Mangols
in I241, rebuilt in I267, destroyed a gain by Timurlane in
I398 and rebuilt once more in I421. The great Mughal emperor
Akbar re placed its mud walls with solid brick masonry in
I566 and extended it northwards. Later Je hangir, Shah Jehan
and Aurangzeb all added the stamps of their widely differing
personalit ies to its fortification, gateways and palaces.
The fort encloses an area of approximately thirty acres and
it is possible to spend many hours wandering there, lost in
contemplation of times gone by, trying to reconstruct in
your imagination a way of life that the world will never see
again. The buildings within its walls are a testament to the
gracious style of Mughal rule at its height, in which every
man knew his place and courtly behaviour had been refined
into an elaborately startified social code. Much of the
architecture reflects this code. From a raised balcony in
the Diwan-e-Aam, or Hall of Public Audience, built by Shah
Jehan in I63I, the emperors looked down on the common people
over whom they ruled when they came to present petitions and
to request the settlement of disputes. Wealthier citizens
and the nobility were allowed to meet their emperors on a
level floor in the Diwan-e-Khas, the Hall of Special
Audience-which was also built by Shah Jehan, in I633.
Shish Mahal, Lahore
While the Hall of Audience are characterized by their strict
functionality, other buildings raised under Shah Jehan's
patronage are styled in a more imaginative and fanciful
mood. Of these the Shish Mahal, or Palace of Mirrors, which
stands on the fort's north side, is by far the most
splendid. It consists of a row of high domed rooms, the
roofs of which are decked out with hundreds of thousands of
tiny mirrors in the fashion of the traditional Punjabi craft
of "Shishgari" (designs made from mirror fragments). A
fire-brand lit inside any part of the Palace of Mirrors
throw back a million reflections that dizzy the eye and seem
like a galaxy of far-off stars turning in an ink-blue
firmament.
Shalimar Garden, Lahore
Another magnificent remnant of the Mughal era, also
partially vandalized in the late eighteenth century by the
invading Sikhs, is the Shalimar Garden which stands on the
Grand Trunk Road about eight kilometers to the east of the
old part of Lahore. "Shalimar" means 'House of Joy' and, in
truth, the passing centuries have done nothing to detract
from the indefinable atmosphere of light-heartedness and
laughter that characterizes this green and peaceful walled
retreat. A canal runs the entire 2,006 foot (6II meters)
length of the garden and from it 450 sparkling fountains
throw up a skein of fresh water that cools and refreshes the
atmosphere, making this a favourite place for afternoon
walks for the citizens of modern Lahore.
Lahore is rightly regarded as the cultural, architectural
and artistic center of Pakistan; indeed, the city is so
steeped in historical distinction that it would be possible
to spend a lifetime studying it without learning everything
that there is to learn.
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