The Geography of Punjab
The word Punjab (Persian) means " fiver rivers" and was used for the first time in the historical account under Mughals Tarikh e Sher Shah (1580). The mighty river Indus flows through Punjab with Sutlej, Bias, Ravi, Chenab, and Jhelum. The Punjab region situated in South Asia a triangular tract of country of which the Indus and the Sutlej to their confluence formed the two sides, the base being the lower Himalayas hills between those two rivers, but Punjab (during British times) also included a large tract outside those boundaries. The northern border of the Himalayan ranges divided it from Kashmir and Tibet while on the west it was separated from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province by the Indus until that river reached the border of South Punjab which was divided from Balochistan by the Sulaiman Mountain range. To the South lay Sindh and Rajputana, while on the east the river Jamna separated it from the United province. Punjab may be divided into four great natural divisions, the Himalayan tract, the submontane tract, the eastern and natural western plains, and the salt range tract, which have divisions. Characteristics are widely different from each other.
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| Minar-i-Pakistan Lahore Punjab |
Punjab is the cradle of the Indus Valley Civilization Harappa and Texila
Archaeologists suggest that discoveries about 3000 BC in the small communities in and around the Indus River basin had evolved and expanded generously to the Indus Valley one of the earliest in human history.
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| Taxila city of Sotnes |
Lahore's Emergence as a Cultural Power Center.
Mahmud of Ghazna had built his fort at the oldest site of Rama's son Lava a fort as the first-ever Muslim settlement in North India. Lahore became a central Muslim capital in the Subcontinent for the next eight centuries. Persian was adopted as an official language and saint-like Ali Muhammad Hajveri resided in Lahore. Sufis, saints, teachers, and artists had migrated to Punjab in great numbers. They had settled in Multan and Uch Shareef as a part of Sindh during the times of Muhammad Bin Qasim in 711. Multan had become a brilliant center for learning the architecture of mosques and Shrines. A thousand years ago a saint emerged in Multan Sayyid Muhammad Shah Yousaf Gardezi from
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| Lahore Fort Punjab |
Sufi Influence as an essence of Punjabi Cultural Ethos.
The first account of Sufi activities in the subcontinent could be found as the visit of Mansur Hallaj to Gujrat, Sindh, and Multan in 905. The peak of mysticism in the subcontinent however was the thirteenth century, the age of the greatest masters of Sufism emerging from Spain to Bengal. Mueenuddin Chishti ( 1236) came from his native Sistan to Ajmer, which had become part of Bengal and was ruled by the Sultan of Dehli. His contemporary Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kai lived and preached in Dehli. Mueenuddin's preaching of the Love of Allah for human beings attracted the masses and soon the Chishti order spread over the whole of India. Other outstanding representatives of his movement were the Fariduddin ganj Shakar of Pakpattan and Nizamuddin Aulia of Dehli. During the first wave of mysticism, four Sufi orders were introduced in the subcontinent in India during the Sultanate period while the fourth one namely Naqshbandia appeared during the Mughal period.
Ali hajveri was born in 1009 in Hajver, Ghazni, Afghtanistan. Ali Hajveri studied Sufism with Aul Fazal Muhammad, who was a student of Abul-Hassan AlHusri. He was well-versed in Tafsir and Riwayat. He is popularly known as Data Ganj Bakhsh. He died in 1072 and was buried in Lahore. His book Kashf-ul-Mahjub, Minhaj-ud-din was an account of the Ahl-l-Suffa and a complete biography of Mansur Hallaj.
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| Shrine of Data Ganj Bakhash Lahore |
Farid Ganj Shakar real name was Masud-ud-din Farid. He was born in 1179 in Multan and got his early education at home. he visited various centres of learning in the Muslim world and then came back to South Asia. He finally settled at Pakpatan, Punjab. where he was buried after his death. Baba Farid used the vernacular language Punjabi as a medium to propagate the teachings of Islam and humanity.
Sultan Bahu was born in 1629 in the Shorkot district of Jhang Punjab. His father Sultan Byazid Muhammad was an official of Emperor Shahjahan and his mother Bibi Rast was a pious woman. He received early education from Habib Qadri and Pir Abdul Rehman were among his spiritual teachers. His Kalam in Persian and Punjabi deals with specialized subjects related to Islam and Islamic mysticism. The available works of Sultan Bahu are Nurul Huda, Risala e Roohi, Aql Baidaar, Mahq ul Fuqara, Qurb Nnvnvn, Aurang Shahi, Jami-il-Asraar, etc are the most popular along with poetry collection Abiyaate bahu.
Waris Shah (1722-98) was born in Jandiala Sher Khan, District Sheikhupura, Punjab. he got his early education from his native town and then went to Qasur to complete formal education of Dars-i-Nizami from Maulana Ghulam Murtaza. Later on, he went to Pakistan to receive spiritual education and stayed there for two years. He also stayed at the shrine of Baba Farid for some time. He wrote Ibrat Nama, Ushtar Nama, Tasneef Nama, Miraj Nama, Chohery Nama, Dohray, and Mahia but Heer received unprecedented fame.
Khawaja Ghulam Farid was born in 1845 A.D. at Kot Mithan in a family of Arab settlers. Khawaja Farid wrote both poetry and prose, some are Dewan-i-Farid (Saraiki poetry), Dewan-i-Farid (Urdu poetry), and Manaqabe Mehboobia ( Persian prose). Khawaja Farid died in 1901 and was laid to rest in Kot Mithan.
History of Punjab
The regional Mughal administration had problems encountered in Punjab from 1707 onwards. A major failure of the Mughals in the region was their inability to deal with the Sikh problem. The period saw the resurgence of the Sikh uprisings directed against the Mughal state. The Sikhs viewed the Mughal state as the source of all tyranny since it not only had the largest share in the social surplus but also legitimized and sustained the existing power structure in the locality. Both Punjab and Sindh had been under Afghan rule since 1757 when Ahmad Shah Abdali was granted power over both provinces. However, there was also a new rising power in Punjab. A local Governor was able to expel the Sikhs from Amritsar but his control was short-lived, however, the Sikhs regained power over the Afghans. The Afghans were forced to retreat and Lahore assumed leadership, striking coins to commemorate their victory and the Emergence of Ranjit Singh.
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| Maharaja Ranjit Singh |
Punjab's Annexation in 1849
After the First Anglo-Sikh War from 1845 to 1846, Punjab between the Sutlej and Beas rivers and Kashmir were ceded to Britain. Some British Troops were stationed in Punjab to oversee the regency of Maharaja Dileep Singh who was a minor and the Sikh army was reduced greatly in size. During 1848 disturbances between the Sikh troops and the British developed into the Second Anglo-Sikh War. That resulted in the annexation of Punjab by the British East India Company in 1849 and Punjab becoming a province of British India.
