1883.] 
F. S. Growse —The town of Bulandshahr. 
287 
descendants continued in possession of an extensive tract of freehold land 
in the suburbs, till 1857, when they forfeited it by their complicity with 
the mutineers. One of the outlying hamlets, included in the straggling 
parish of Baran, still bears the name of Bahlxmpura. 
At the beginning of the seventeenth century, and probably for some 
years later, Baran continued to be the capital of a dastur, or district, in the 
Home Sarkar, or Division, of the Delhi Suba, or Province. But the town 
must have rapidly sunk into insignificance, and eventually it became a 
dependency of Kol. It receives no further mention in any historical 
record after the Ain-i-Akbari, and the only event of even local interest, 
that forms a landmark in the later Muhammadan period, is the founda¬ 
tion of the Jama Masjid in 1730. This was built by Sabit Ivhan, who 
achieved special distinction as Governor of Ivol. There he is commemorat¬ 
ed by his restoration of the old Fort, which he called Sabit-garb ; by a 
dargah , bearing date 1707 ; and still more by the great mosque in the 
centre of the town, which he completed in 1728. His tomb is in the 
garden now known as Kinloch-ganj. The Bulandshahr mosque is of much 
less pretension and, being unfinished at the time of his death, remained so 
till more than a hundred years later. His lineal descendants at Aligarh, 
however poor their circumstances, and most of them are mere labourers, 
are distinguished by the personal title of Nawab, in remembrance of their 
ancestor. In Bulandshahr his success as a proselytizer is evidenced by 
several families—originally Thakurs of the Bargujar clan—who were led 
by him to adopt Muhammadanism and who have ever since borne the 
name of Sabit-khani. 
Fifty years later, viz., in 1780, Baran had its final fall, being then 
abandoned even by the Amil, or subordinate revenue official, who had 
hitherto made it his head-quarters. The spot that he selected in pre¬ 
ference was on the opposite side of the river, some six miles to the north. 
The village had previously been known as Rathora ; but the new Fort was 
placed by its founder, the Amil Hak-dad Khan, under the patronage of a 
saint, popularly styled Malamal, who had a shrine close by, and it received 
the name of Malagarh. In 1857 Hak-dad’s grandson, Walidad Khan, 
put himself at the head of the revolt and proved a formidable opponent. 
He was connected with the royal family of Delhi—his sister’s daughter 
having been married to one of the king’s sons—and he had thus obtained 
from Muhammad Bahadur a formal grant appointing him Subadar of this 
part of the Doab. Malagarh became the resort of all the disaffected from 
far and near; his troops overran the whole neighbourhood, fought several 
sharp engagements, and for a few days occupied the town of Bulandshahr. 
On the '28th of September they were driven out, and their leader escaped 
across the Ganges. The demolition of his fort at Malagarh, which took 
