Page:Bulandshahr- Or, Sketches of an Indian District- Social, Historical and Architectural.djvu/73

 in Cufic characters have also been inserted in the same wall at regular distances, to serve as decorative panels, and the later Persian inscription seems to have been utilized with simply the same object. The appearance of this building, with its blackened and crumbling masonry, is scarcely creditable to the Muhammadan community, who should take some steps to clean and repair it.

About 100 yards to the east of the Íd-gáh and the adjoining English cemetery, is a square-domed tomb of substantial brick masonry and some size, but no particular architectural merit, with a Persian inscription. This records its completion during the reign of the Emperor Akbar, in the year 1006 Hijri (1597 A. D.) as a monument to the memory of Miyán Bahlol Khán Bahádur. He belonged to the Bahlím clan of Shaikhs, and descendants continued in possession of an extensive tract of freehold land in the suburbs, till 1857, when they forfeited it by their complicity with the mutineers. One of the outlying hamlets, included in the straggling parish of Baran, still bears the name of Bahlímpura.

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, and probably for some years later, Baran continued to be the capital of a dastúr, or district, in the Home Sarkár, or Division, of the Delhi Súba, or Province. But the town must have rapidly sunk into insignificance, and eventually it became a dependency of Kol. It receives no further mention in any historical record after the Ain-i-Akbari, and the only event of even local interest, that forms a landmark in the later Muhammadan period, is the foundation of the Jama Masjid in 1730. This was built by Sábit Khán, who achieved special distinction as Governor of Kol. There he is commemorated by his restoration of the old Fort, which he called Sábit-gaṛh; by a dargáh, bearing date 1707; and still more by the great mosque in the centre of the town, which he completed in 1728. His tomb is in the garden now known as Kinloch-ganj. The Bulandshahr mosque is of much less pretension and, being unfinished at the time of his death, remained so till more than a hundred years later. His lineal descendants at Aligarh, however poor their circumstances, and most of them are mere labourers, are distinguished by the personal title of Nawáb, in remembrance of their ancestor. In Bulandshahr his success as a proselytizer is evidenced by several families—originally Thákurs of the Bargújar clan—who were led by him to adopt Muhammadanism and who have ever since borne the name of Sábit-kháni.