Sultanate Bihar and Sher Shah of Sasaram

Bakhtiyar Khalji

Around 1193–1205, Ikhtiyaruddin Muhammad Bakhtiyar Khalji, a Turkish commander serving the Ghurids, raided south Bihar. Thinking the walled monastery of Odantapuri was a fort, he stormed it; Nalanda and Vikramshila were also ruined. The chronicler Minhaj-us-Siraj (Tabaqat-i-Nasiri) says the conquerors found the place was a vihara, and the region came to be called Bihar. Bakhtiyar went on to take Nadia in Bengal.

A frontier province

For three centuries Bihar was fought over:

• the Delhi Sultans (the Tughlaqs held Tirhut after 1324);
• the independent sultans of Bengal;
• the Sharqis of Jaunpur in the 15th century;
• Afghan chiefs such as the Lohanis and Nuhanis, who ruled south Bihar in the early 16th century.

The Sufis of Bihar

Maner Sharif, west of Patna, became a major Sufi centre:

• Makhdum Yahya Maneri settled here;
• his son Sharfuddin Ahmad Yahya Maneri (died 1381), of the Firdausi order, lived at Bihar Sharif. His letters, the Maktubat-e-Sadi, are a classic of Sufi teaching.

Sharfuddin's dargah at Bihar Sharif and Makhdum Yahya's dargah at Maner are still visited by thousands every year.

Sher Shah: from Sasaram to Delhi

Farid Khan was born into an Afghan family that held the jagir of Sasaram. Serving the Lohani rulers of Bihar, he earned the title Sher Khan. Step by step he took control of Bihar:

1. Surajgarh (1534): defeated the Bengal army near Munger.
2. Chausa (1539): defeated the Mughal emperor Humayun on the Ganga near Buxar, and took the title Sher Shah.
3. Kannauj or Bilgram (1540): defeated Humayun again and drove him out of India.

His reforms

• Grand Trunk Road (then Sadak-e-Azam) rebuilt from Sonargaon in Bengal to the north-west, with sarais (inns) and a horse-post system.
• The silver rupiya and copper dam, the base of later Mughal and British coinage.
• Land revenue fixed on the measured area and the quality of the land, with written agreements (patta and qabuliyat), ideas Akbar's minister Todar Mal developed further.
• A fort at Patna (1541), which revived Patna as a city and a capital.

His tomb at Sasaram, an octagonal building rising from an artificial lake, is one of the finest examples of Indo-Afghan architecture. He also rebuilt the hill fort of Rohtasgarh. Sher Shah died in 1545 in an explosion while besieging Kalinjar.

Exam tip: Remember the battle sequence by its places in Bihar and UP: Surajgarh → Chausa → Kannauj (1534 → 1539 → 1540). Also remember that both Sher Shah's tomb and his home jagir are at Sasaram.