Anhalwara (Patan, Gujarat)

Anhalwara, now Patan, is a city in the Mehsana district of Gujarat, on the bank of the Saraswati. It was the headquarters of the province of Gujarat from 699/1299 to 816-817/1413-1414, when Ahmad Shah, grandson of Muzaffar Khan, made Ahmadabad his capital. ¹

Hindu and Jain tradition ascribes its foundation to the Chavada ruler Vanaraja in 746 or 765. It was for centuries the capital of the Chaulukya-Solanki dynasty. Mahmud of Ghazni took it in 416/1025, though he paused there only to replenish his supplies on his way to Somnath. Qutb al-Din Aybak plundered it in 593/1196-1197. The definitive Muslim conquest came in 699/1299, when Ulugh Khan and Nusrat Khan, generals of Sultan 'Ala' al-Din Khalji, sacked it. For a century it remained in Delhi's sphere; under the descendants of Muzaffar Khan, who proclaimed himself independent in 810/1407, it sank to a dependency. After Akbar's conquest of Gujarat in 980/1572 it became the centre of the sarkar of Patan. ²

The Adina or Jami' mosque, built of white marble about 705/1305, was destroyed by the Marathas in the eighteenth century, and its stone was later used for the town walls. The Gumada and Shaykh mosques still stand. The most magnificent Muslim work is the Khan Sarovar, a large lake given its present form between 997/1589 and 1002/1594 by Mirza 'Aziz Koka, Akbar's foster brother. ³