Page:Bulandshahr- Or, Sketches of an Indian District- Social, Historical and Architectural.djvu/71

 Of the Baranwálas, who adhered to the old faith, the most conspicuous person in the present century was Sítal Dás, who about the year 1830, built that portion of lower Bulandshahr which is known as Sítal Ganj, and is now the property of his son Prem-sukh Dás.

In spite of the massacre and famine and wholesale expulsion of the inhabitants that took place in 1344. Zia-ud-dín relates that his native town rapidly revived under the more benign sway of Firoz Sháh. At some time during his reign, which lasted from 1351 to 1388, that Emperor founded Khurja, which has become the largest commercial mart in the neighbourhood; a part of it is still called Firoz Ganj. More than a century later, Sikandar Lodi, about the year 1500, founded what are now the two considerable towns of Sikandarabád and Shikárpur, at which latter place—as the name indicates—he had a small hunting-box for occasional residence. The only two other towns of any size in the district, Anúpshahr and Jahángirabád, were founded later still, in the reign of Jahangir; which shows, how essentially modern the present centres of population are, excepting only Bulandshahr itself and Dibhái: the latter is occasionally mentioned by the early Muhammadan historians as a muster-place for troops.

The prosperity which the country had enjoyed during the long and settled reign of Firoz was followed by a series of fratricidal struggles between his sons and grandsons for the possession of the throne, and then by the ruin and rapine of foreign invasion. On the capture of Delhi by the Mughals in 1398, the puppet Emperor Mahmúd fled away to Gujarat, while the Regent, Ikbal Khán, took refuge in the fort of Baran. Tímúr soon returned home with his plunder to Samarkand, and on his departure Nusrat Sháh—also one of Firoz's grandsons—marched up from Merath and reoccupied the ruins of the capital, whence he sent a large force "under Shahab Khán to Baran to overpower Ikbál. On the way, a band of Hindu foot-soldiers fell upon him in the night and killed him and dispersed his followers. As soon as Ikbál heard of this, and that the elephants also