Sialkot

Sialkot is commonly identified with ancient Sagala, a city of the Madra country that became the capital of the Indo-Greek king Menander. Trade and Buddhist learning flourished there, and the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang later described a city rebuilt near the older site. Sialkot remained an important centre in northern Punjab, with a fort overlooking the approaches towards Jammu.

In the early fifteenth century Jasrat Khokhar made Sialkot the capital of a kingdom that challenged the Delhi sultans. The city later passed to the Lodis and was captured by Babur's forces. Under Akbar, Raja Man Singh repaired its fort, while paper-makers from Kashmir settled in the city. Sialkot became famous for its strong, white Hariri paper and for Islamic learning; the scholar Abdul Hakim Sialkoti taught at the Mughal court, and his son's madrasa continued as a centre of study. Nader Shah captured Sialkot in 1739, and the city passed through the hands of Afghan and Sikh powers. By 1786 chiefs of the Bhangi Misl controlled the district; in 1808 Ranjit Singh took the city into his Sikh Empire.