Jaunpur

Jaunpur became the capital of the Sharqi sultans during the fragmentation of Delhi's authority in the late fourteenth century. Malik Sarwar, invested with the title Malik al-Sharq and authority over eastern territories, established his court here. His successors made the city a centre of royal patronage, religious architecture and learning.

Ibrahim Shah completed the Atala Mosque in 1408. Other monumental mosques, including the Friday Mosque associated with Husain Shah, gave the fifteenth-century capital a distinctive architectural character. Sharqi rule ended through prolonged conflict with the Lodi sultans, whose control was consolidated in the later fifteenth century. Jaunpur subsequently belonged to the Mughal political world; the royal bridge across the Gomti was constructed during Akbar's reign. In 1722 the district passed to the nawab of Awadh. Changes in sovereignty thus left successive marks on a city whose monuments preserved the ambitions of its independent sultans.