

f N.-E. India— I. 147 



Vol. VI, No. 4.] History and Ethnology i 



[N.S.] 



The Mubarakabad referred to in the inscription probably 

 takes us back to the time of the rule of independent Kings in 

 Eastern Bengal. After the defeat and death of the rebellious 

 Viceroy Bahadur Shah in 731 A.H., the Emperor Muhammad 

 Ibn Tughluq returned to Dihll, leaving Bahram Khan in his 

 old post of Governor of Sunarganw and Qadr Khan as Gover- 

 nor of Lakhnautl. Bahram Khan died in 739 AH., where- 



ru-d-Din Mubarak, seized Sunar- 

 ganw. Muhammad Ibn Tu gh luq ordered Qadr 

 the rebel, andFakhru-d-Din being defeated, " fled and concealed 

 himself in the forests" l but soon after succeeded in inducing 

 the soldiers left behind in Sunarganw to kill Qadr Khan under 

 promise of distributing among them the treasure which Qadr 

 Khan had collected and was on the point of forwarding to 

 DihlL This appears to have happened in 741 A.H., and 

 Fakhru-d-Din ruled continuously as the first independent sover- 

 eign of Sunarganw until 750. A glance at RennelFs map 

 No. XII will show that there is strong likelihood of Fakh- 

 ru-d-Dln having retreated from Qadr Khan into the Lakhya 



River, from which there was easy access to the maze of water- 

 ways round Dacca by means of the Tangi and Turag rivers or 

 the Dolaiganj creek, and his success is also not unlikely to have 

 been commemorated by calling his place of refuge after his own 



name, rrom the phrase 



pear probable that the district of which Mubarakabad was the 

 chief town stretched S.E. to the Meghna and (apart from any 

 thing north of Dacca) included all old Vikrampur, i.e., those 

 portions of the existing districts of Dacca and Farldpur, 

 south of the Dhaleswari, which lay in the acute angle between 

 the old course of the Ganges, and the Meghna on the east (vide 

 RennelFs maps Nos. IX and XVII). A relic of the Iqlim 

 seems to be the Mubarak Ujiyal mentioned in the 'Ain as a 



parganah of Sirkar Bazuha (Vol. II, Jarretfs trans., p. 138). 

 This still exists as a large parganah of the Dacca district, com- 

 prising much of the land south-west and west of Dacca town, 

 between the Pad ma on the south and the Dhaleswari on the 

 north. 



No coins minted in .Mubarakabad have yet come to light, 



ru-d-Dln's coins from 741 — 750 mentioned by 

 Thomas (Chronicles, p 263) being all from Sunarganw. 



Blochmann's suggestion (loc. cit. % p. 108) that Khwajah 

 Jahan is the same person as Ulugh 

 Ivhallfatabad, the modern Bagherhat in Khulna, is untenable, 

 as in the first place, a striking change in name is not likely to 

 have taken place in the interval, June to October, 1459, nor 

 is it likely for any one to have travelled from Dacca to 



Stewart, History of Bengal 



