The eastern kingdom
Jaunpur had been founded by Firuz Shah Tughlaq, and when the Sultanate collapsed after Timur's invasion its governor Malik Sarwar made himself independent. The Sharqi — eastern — sultans held the country between Delhi and Bengal for three generations and were at times strong enough to threaten Delhi itself.
Their court became a magnet for scholars and musicians displaced by the sack of Delhi, and the city's reputation as the Shiraz of India dates from this period.
Music and architecture
Sultan Husain Shah Sharqi, the last of the line, was a composer of consequence: the development of the khayal form, and a number of rāgas, are attributed to him in the tradition of Hindustani music. Whatever the exact attribution, Jaunpur's contribution to the emergence of the north Indian classical tradition is well attested, and a rāga still bears the city's name.
The Sharqi mosques — the Atala Masjid, the Jama Masjid, the Lal Darwaza — are architecturally distinctive: enormous sloping pylon-like screens over the central arch, so that the façade reads as a single monumental gateway. Nothing quite like it was built elsewhere in India.
Bahlul Lodi conquered Jaunpur in 1479 and Husain Shah fled to Bengal. Sikandar Lodi later demolished a number of the city's buildings, though the principal mosques survived.
Further reading
- Asher, Catherine B. India Before Europe. Cambridge University Press, 2006
- Jackson, Peter. The Delhi Sultanate: A Political and Military History. Cambridge University Press, 1999
- Richards, John F. The Mughal Empire. Cambridge University Press, 1993
- Kulke, Hermann. A History of India. Routledge, 2004
- Behrendt, Kurt A. The Art of Gandhara in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2007
See also
This entry was last revised on 1 August 2026.