Laharpur is a town, tehsil headquarter and a municipal board in

Sitapur district Sitapur district is one of the Districts of Uttar Pradesh, districts which is situated in Uttar Pradesh States and territories of India, state of India, with Sitapur town as the district headquarters. Sitapur district is a part of Lucknow divis ...

in the Indian

state State most commonly refers to: * State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory **Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country **Nation state, a ...

Uttar Pradesh Uttar Pradesh ( ; UP) is a States and union territories of India, state in North India, northern India. With over 241 million inhabitants, it is the List of states and union territories of India by population, most populated state in In ...

History

The foundation of this town was laid by Emperor Firoz Shah Tughlaq (1351–1388 AD) in 1370 AD, while he was on his way to the shrine of Saiyyad Salar Masud Ghazi at Baharaich. At that time, he settled in some

Kayastha Kayastha (or Kayasth) denotes a cluster of disparate Indian communities broadly categorised by the regions of the Indian subcontinent in which they were traditionally locatedthe Chitraguptavanshi Kayasthas of North India, the Chandraseniya Ka ...

and

Muslim Muslims () are people who adhere to Islam, a Monotheism, monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God ...

families. Around 1400, a local Hindu (

Pasi Pasi may refer to: * Pasi (caste), a Hindu caste of northern India * Pasi (film), ''Pasi'' (film), a 1979 Tamil film * Pasi (given name) * Pasi (surname), a surname of the Pasi community * Pasi, Papua New Guinea, a settlement near the coast of San ...

) strongman, Lahori Pasi, took possession of it and changed its name from Tuglaqpur to Lahoripur, which became Laharpur due to usage. His descendants remained in possession of Laharpur for another 18 years or so. They were exterminated by a Muslim commander, Sheikh Tahir Gazi of

Kannauj Kannauj (Hindustani language, Hindustani pronunciation: ) is an ancient city, administrative headquarters and a municipal board or Nagar palika, Nagar Palika Parishad in Kannauj district in the Indian States and territories of India, state of Ut ...

in 1418 AD. The town became an important urban center when Raja Todarmal, the finance minister of Emperor Akbar, reconstituted a new pargana of 765 villages with its administrative center at the town of Laharpur. Muslims ruled the town until the death of Mughal Emperor

Aurangzeb Alamgir I (Muhi al-Din Muhammad; 3 November 1618 – 3 March 1707), commonly known by the title Aurangzeb, also called Aurangzeb the Conqueror, was the sixth Mughal emperors, Mughal emperor, reigning from 1658 until his death in 1707, becomi ...

in 1707, when, taking advantage of widespread anarchy across

Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an Early modern period, early modern empire in South Asia. At its peak, the empire stretched from the outer fringes of the Indus River Basin in the west, northern Afghanistan in the northwest, and Kashmir in the north, to ...

, a local Gaur commander, Raja Chandar Sen invaded

Sitapur Sitapur is a city and a municipal board in Sitapur district in the States and territories of India, state of Uttar Pradesh, India. It is located 90 kilometres north of state capital, Lucknow. The traditional origin for the name is said to be by ...

in 1707. Since then, it remained under the control local Gaur Kshatriyas until 1858 when it came under the rule of

British Crown The Crown is a political concept used in Commonwealth realms. Depending on the context used, it generally refers to the entirety of the State (polity), state (or in federal realms, the relevant level of government in that state), the executive ...

Geography

Laharpur is located at . It has an average elevation of 133

metre The metre (or meter in US spelling; symbol: m) is the base unit of length in the International System of Units (SI). Since 2019, the metre has been defined as the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of of ...

s (436

feet The foot (: feet) is an anatomical structure found in many vertebrates. It is the terminal portion of a limb which bears weight and allows locomotion. In many animals with feet, the foot is an organ at the terminal part of the leg made up of ...

Demographics

India

census A census (from Latin ''censere'', 'to assess') is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording, and calculating population information about the members of a given Statistical population, population, usually displayed in the form of stati ...

, the town is home to 50,080 souls. Males constitute 52% of the population and females 48%.The sex ratio of Laharpur Tehsil is 896, which means that for every 1,000 men, there are 896 women. It has an average literacy rate of 60.49%.Male literacy is 64.89%, and female literacy is 55.83%. About 19% of the population in town is under 6 years of age.

Economic activities

The core business used to be weaving by local artisans mostly belonging to Muslim community but due to high cost of raw material and higher labor cost, this artisan based craft is on the verge of extinction. Laharpur used to be a hub of weaving and

Zardozi Zardozi, or zar-douzi or zarduzi (from Classical Persian زَردوزی ''zardōzī'', literally "gold embroidery"; ; , , , ), is an Iranian, Indian subcontinent, Indian-subcontinent and Central Asian embroidery type. Zardozi comes from two Pers ...

work in past. However, in present the main businesses in Laharpur are timber and leather work.

Religious places

It is famous for being the seat of Qalandaria Order of Sufism and the Dargah of saints Shah Alauddin Ahmad Chirminaposh Suharwardi, Shah Abdul Rahman Jaanbaaz Qalandar and Shah Maja Qalandar.

References

{{Sitapur district Cities and towns in Sitapur district