A fortnight ago as I roamed the streets of old walled Lahore, I sat down with a ‘hakeem’ inside Bhati Gate. He queried as to why Lahore has ancient graves outside the city, and why no ancient building exists in this over 4,000-year-old city.

It was a sharp observation, and he pointed out that the oldest grave inside the walled city was that of Malik Ayaz, the slave official of Mahmud, the Turko-Afghan invader. I stopped the hakeem and informed him that the walled city before Akbar, the Mughal (1542-1605 AD), was much smaller and enclosed to the west of Shahalami Bazaar to the east of Bhati Gate Bazaar, and that Mochi, Akbari, Delhi, Yakki, Shahalami, Masti and even Kashmiri gates did not exist then.

He gave me a look of surprise. I further informed him that in ancient times all Muslims were buried outside the city walls as it was essentially a Hindu city. I also informed him that the grave of Malik Ayaz in Rang Mahal was then outside the city walls.

The expansion of Akbar’s bricked walls brought a lot of graves inside. A lot were left outside. Even Ayaz’s grave has a recently built bricked room over the grave. That grave was originally of mud, only to recently be built by Shahalami traders.

Mahmud, the invader, conquered and completely destroyed the city of Lahore in 1022. It was the end of Hindushahi rule those leading ruler Jayapala committed ‘Johar’ in 1001 AD after being defeated outside Mori Gate and his ashes added to the River Ravi which flowed outside.

In early 1850s, the river meandered to its present position. A portion of it is a ‘lake-like’ Bodha Ravi just west of Minto Park, whose name was initially the EIC named Company Bagh as military parades were held here.

In Ranjit Singh’s days, this was an almond garden. The nearby Badami Bagh still retains the original name. The Governor-General of India, Lord Minto, overtook the name of Company Bagh. After 1947, it was named Iqbal Park, even though the poet was not present when the Pakistan Declaration was presented there.

The ’hakeem’ was getting more and more interested. He did not realise that in the middle of the once Company Bagh is the grave of Hafeez Jalandhri who wrote the national anthem. The original anthem which Mr Jinnah approved of was by a Hindu poet working in Radio Pakistan Lahore named Jagan Nath Azad. But given our communal mindset our half-literate rulers overruled Jinnah’s choice. Mr. Jinnah is increasingly becoming non-relevant as recent events show.

One could feel the ‘hakeem’ getting a wee bit uncomfortable. He commented: “How could Jinnah allow a Hindu to write Pakistan’s national anthem?” My answer was that the founder of Pakistan envisaged a secular country where everyone had equal rights. The ‘hakeem’ then let forth a classic comment: “Priests have been the undoing of many societies. Today priests sight the Eid moon instead of scientists”.

So it was that in 1021 that Lahore lost all its ancient structures. Everything today is post-Mahmud, or so we believe. The ‘hakeem’ in a clever mood said: “But the Temple of Loh, after whom Lahore is named is ancient.” My response was: “The so-called Temple of Loh was built in the last days of Aurangzeb, and it was never a temple. Inside was where the ashes of Gujjar Singh were placed. The structure itself is not Hindu, yet because of rumours Hindus do come to pray there”.

The ’hakeem’ was struck. He had forgotten, as confirmed by an Aga Khan official, that the surface structure of this so-called temple is much higher than the 1957 archaeological dig which went 50-feet deep.

To keep the conversation going I informed him that exactly on the other side of the ancient city just off Anarkali bazaar is the tomb of another slave ruler Qutbuddin Aibak. He was the man to set up the Miani Sahib graveyard, miles away from ancient Lahore.

The hakeem wanted to know the oldest Muslim grave outside Lahore. That one is about a mile south east on a mound that passes by the present Hall Road next to the back gate of the Cathedral School. That is the grave of Sheikh Ismail located between the school and a bank premises. As one climbs the stairs there is an open space. This space could well be Lahore’s oldest mosque space.

So back to Mahmud the Invader. I informed him that during the conquest of Lahore in 1021 by Mahmud, the Bhatti Rajputs had joined him and had a major role in the city’s destruction. Ironically, Mahmud did not approve of this behaviour and ordered that all Bhatti Rajputs should be butchered. His famous quote is: “People who butcher their own fighting for an invader need to be butchered too”.

Ironically, almost 500 years later these very Bhatti Rajput’s were appeased as Akbar built Bhati Gate and its housing to prevent them helping Dullah Bhatti from opposing his high land taxes. The peasant divide was taken care of. The hakeem went silent.

But after Lahore was rebuilt, initially by Ayaz and others, all in mud bricks, in 1241 AD a fierce force of 30,000 Mongols of the Qaraunas tribe led by Munggetu Kiyan (Khan) surrounded Lahore and pledged: “The Great Khan Ogedei has ordered to eliminate Lahore from the face of the Earth”.

So this fierce army set about their task, and within 21 days each and every man had been slaughtered, every woman had been raped and afterwards their throats slit “till the streets were red with blood”. Not a single human remained alive. Lahore physically ceased to exist (HK Trevaskis, 1928 Oxford).

But then Lahore is Lahore. Within the next 100 years it had more houses than before and the street alignment, natural that they were, were recreated. “Where there is honey, bees do come” is how the Mongol invader Timur described Lahore (Naindeep S. Chann, 2008).

Timur was a fierce warrior of the famous Barlas tribe of Turkish origin. On hearing the refusal to pay over and above what existed, he sent his grandson to ‘gather all their wealth, their horses, their artisans, their slaves and then flatten the city’.

So Lahore again saw its buildings flattened and its wealth stolen. One saying still remains part of Lahore’s vocabulary, and that being “If Timur comes, only owls remain”. Once the Mongols left, Lahore began to rebuild.

But then within 120 years of the last carnage a sub-branch of the Mongols - the Mughals - came to conquer India in the guise of Babar, who was related to Timur. In 1519, Babar ordered that Lahore be raised to the ground. That is exactly what his army did, pillaging and raping as was the Mongol tradition. Guru Nanak was to write: “This age is a knife and the rulers are butchers. If true men speak the truth, they suffer for it”. Sounds almost like the present times.

From then onwards the Mughals rebuilt Lahore to a glory it had never seen before. But then the decay was mostly inward. By the time Emperor Aurangzeb died in 1707, except for the Badshahi Mosque, other monuments had begun to decay. In the Sikh era (1799-1839) a complete neglect of historic monuments was seen. The British wanted their railway lines which saw a lot of Mughal structures being destroyed. However, they also built a new Lahore to the south and east of the walled city.

Come Pakistan with a Muslim communal mindset, there are hundreds of graveyards all around the old and a new Lahore grows. Formerly invaders knocked down historic monuments. Now the trading classes, led by our present rulers, do the same. The ‘hakeem’ agreed.

Published in Dawn, September 8th, 2025