Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057352).pdf/455

 SUL 447 under a Musalman governor, or at least in the occupation of a Musalman army on his first arrival in it, and as if it was only by entering the service of the governor (who it may be remarked had been a companion of Qutb- ud-dín in the Benares campaign, and had in its termination been immedi- ately appointed to a governorship, that of Koil) that he obtained a base of operations for his subsequent incursions into Bebár; at a later period he may certainly have held the province, as in the year A.D. 1202," he joined the auspicious stirrups and came to pay his respects from the direction of Oudh and Behár." After Muhammad Bakhtiar's unsuccessful attempt to establish an independent eastern empire, and the consequent restriction of his dominion to Bengal proper by Shams-ud-dín Altamsh, the rest of the territory previously held by him was parcelled out into smaller jurisdictions, in which may be traced perhaps the outlines of those arrangements which were afterwards more fully elaborated in the Aín-i-Akbari. Araong them Oudh became again a separate province; it was first held by Nasír-ud-dín, elder sou of Shams-ud-din, and in the next generation reference is made to a " Hakim Oudh." The incumbent of the office being one Qázi Jalál- ud-din, and recurrence of the title may be noted until after the access sion of the Khilji dynasty. Extent of Oudh at this period.—The Oudh here alluded to, it must at the same time be remarked, was very much smaller in extent than either the kingdom of Rám Chandar had been in early ages, or than the subah to which it subsequently gave a pamc; for contemporary with the Qázi Jalal-ud-dín, above-named, Nasír-ud-din Mahmúd, afterwards emperor, held the northern portion of the province which constituted the separate district of Bahraich, and in the opposite direction where Oudh marches with Mánikpur their mutual boundary line most likely cut across the south-western corner of this district, excluding a large track from Oudh, and placing it in Manikpur. These two governments being thus contiguous, the politics of the one were not unnaturally influenced by those of its neighbours, and it is not surprising to find that when Malik Jhájhu, a nephew of Ghayás-ud-dín, rebelled against his Khilji sovereign in his government of Karra, Amír Ali,+ his contemporary in Oudh, participated in the revolt. One of the immediate effects of the defeat of the confederates, which was speedily effected by the royal forces was the conferment of the government of Karra Mánikpur by the emperor on his nephew, Alá-ud-din Khilji, who now first appears in the history of this district, and as he was chief among those whom the king delighted to honour, he soon became still more inti- mately connected with it by receiving a second grant, viz., of the govern- ment of Oudh, which had of course become vacant in consequence of the rebellion of Amir Ali. Ald-ud-din Khiljös two governments included the whole district.-Alá. ud-din Khilji was thus the first Musalman governor under whose rule the two previously separate portions of the district were united, but he is never- theless completely ignored in the annals of all parts of it alike. Whether † Also called flatim Khan (Farishta).
 * Elliott's History of India, II., 344.
 * Lyen then Chánda belonged to another government.