Gunnaur

Gunnaur lay in the Ganges country west of Budaun, on the road toward Anupshahr. Its local historical tradition centred on a Persian Muslim holy man, Sheikh Tahir Majid-ud-din, remembered as Makhdum Sahib. The Budaun district gazetteer recorded that he settled here in the thirteenth century with two disciples, Taj-ud-din and Muizz-ud-din. It presented this as a local account, linking their arrival to the renaming of an earlier settlement called Bahmanpuri.

The accompanying story of a hostile ruler struck blind and miraculously cured belongs to saintly legend. The more lasting social inheritance was the association of the shrine with landholding families. Makhdum Sahib's descendants were known as Pirzadas, while descendants of his disciples were called Chughani Sheikhs. Under the nawab-wazirs of Awadh, the Gunnaur chaudhris lost some of their villages, although other holdings remained. The town's past thus joined a revered tomb and remembered foundation story to changing rights over the surrounding countryside.