Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057352).pdf/454

 446 SUL CHAPTER V. HISTORY. Hlistory-Places of interest. Earliest Muhammadan settlement in this district—The history of Sul- tanpur need not here be carried back beyond the thirteenth century of our era. During this period it probably was that the first Mubammadan conquests were achieved, and the first Muhammadan colonies planted in the western portion of this district. From the tenure of the message sent to Sayyad Sálár when he arrived in Satrikh it may be gathered that the princes of Mánikpur claimed dominions over the whole tract which intervened between their capital and Satrikh, nearly the whole of which, indeed, was afterwards included in the Manikpur Sarkár, and the chronicles of Jáis and Subeba towus which lay nearly on the line of march from one place to the other, point to the time of Salár Masaúd as that in which they were first visited by Muhammadans. Sultanpur conquered by the Muhammadans.—Sultanpur, in spite of the expeditions sent from Satrikh against Benares and other places to the east, appears for some unexplained reasons to have escaped the fate of its neighbours, Jáis on the one side and Jaunpur on the other; it may have been that its naturally strong position baffled for the time all the attempts of the invaders. But be the cause what it may, the traditions current in its vicinity are singularly unanimous in omitting all mention of Sayyad Sálár, and in representing the Bhars to have remained masters of it, until it was captured from them by Alá-ud-din Ghori. And as part of Oudh under Muhammadan governors.—This view is further supported by the fact that about this time the first mention is made of a Muhammadan governor (or Commander-in-Chief) in Oudh, being indeed, so far as I have been able to ascertain, the first instance in which allusion is made to that province by the Muhammadan historians. In relating the history of Muhammad Bakhtiár Khilji, the author of the Tabaqat-i-Násiri* says that “this Muhammad Bakhtiar was a Khilji of Ghor of the province of Garmsír. He was a very smart, enterprising, bold, coura- geous, and experienced man. He left his tribe and came to the court of Sultan Miziz -dín at Ghazni, was placed in the Diwán-i-arz (office for petitions), but as the chief of that department was not satisfied with him he was dismissed, and proceeded from Ghazni to Hindustan. When he reached the Court of Delhi he was again rejected by the chief of the Díwán-i-arz of that city, and so he went on to Budaon into the service of Hizabr-ud-dín Hasan, Commander-in-chief, where he obtained a suitable position. After some time he went to Oudh in the service of Malik Histm-ud-din Ughlabak. He had good horses and arms, and he had showed much activity and valour at many places, so he obtained Sablat and Sahli in jágír." I have quoted this passage in extenso, because Muhammad Bakhtiár is himself credited by Elphinstone with the conquest of a part at least of Oudh, whereas from the above passage it looks as if he found the province
 * Elliott's History of India, II., 305.