The city of saints
Multan is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the subcontinent and had been a frontier capital since the Arab conquest of Sindh. The Langahs, a local Punjabi tribe, took it in 1445 as Delhi's authority evaporated, and ruled a prosperous state on the trade route between Sindh, Khurasan and the Punjab.
The city's fame rests on its shrines. Bahauddin Zakariya established the Suhrawardi Sufi order there in the thirteenth century, and the tombs of Zakariya, Shah Rukn-e-Alam and Shams Sabzwari are among the finest works of the region's brick-and-tile architecture. The Rukn-e-Alam tomb, an enormous octagon of tapering brick faced in blue and white glazed tile, was built in the early fourteenth century and remains one of the great buildings of South Asia.
End
The sultanate declined in factional conflict and was taken by the Arghuns of Sindh in 1528, passing shortly after to the Mughals.
Multan's Sufi establishments long outlasted its sultans and remain central to the religious life of southern Punjab, where the shrine culture — with its urs festivals, qawwali and hereditary custodians — retains a hold that the reformist movements of the last two centuries have not displaced.
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.