Multan

Multan, on the old course of the Chenab in southern Punjab, is an ancient city of merchants and saints. Ibn Battuta found it a trading centre for horses brought from as far as the Russian steppe, and Sufi teachers made it a city of shrines around its fort. The tomb of Shah Rukn-e-Alam, completed in the Tughluq era, and that of Bahauddin Zakariya are its landmarks.

Multan lay in Delhi's hands in 1337, though Muhammad bin Tughluq's heavy taxes had left its countryside devastated. In 1397 Timur's grandson Pir Muhammad besieged the city and took it after half a year. Its governor Khizr Khan joined Timur and later founded the Sayyid dynasty at Delhi in 1414. The Langah sultans made Multan their capital from 1445, and under Shah Husayn (1469-1498) it prospered while Baloch settlers came at his invitation. After the Arghuns ended Langah rule in 1528, Akbar made the city the seat of one of the largest provinces of the Mughal Empire, Subah Multan. Ahmad Shah Durrani took it in 1752, and the Sikh misls won it briefly in 1772, but the Durrani governor Muzaffar Khan held the fort until 1818, when Ranjit Singh's army hauled up the great Zamzama cannon. Muzaffar Khan and several of his sons died before it fell.