Kalpi

Kalpi is a historical city and municipal board in Jalaun district in Uttar Pradesh, India. It is on the right bank of the Yamuna. It is situated 78 kilometres south-west of Kanpur from which it is connected by both road and rail. In 1196 it fell to Qutb al-Din Aibak, the viceroy of Mohammed Ghori, and during the subsequent Muslim period it played a significant part in the history of central India.

Quotes

• In the meanwhile Delhi received news of the defeat of the armies of Islãm which were with Malikzãdã Mahmûd bin Fîrûz Khãn… This Malikzãdã reached the bank of the Yamunã via Shãhpur and renamed Kãlpî, which was the abode and centre of the infidels and the wicked, as Muhammadãbãd, after the name of Prophet Muhammad. He got mosques erected for the worship of Allãh in places occupied by temples, and made that city his capital.
  • Sultãn Ghiyãsu’d-Dîn Tughlaq Shãh II (AD 1388-89) Kalpi (Uttar Pradesh) Tãrîkh-i-Muhammadî in S.A.A. Rizvi in Tughlaq Kãlina Bhãrata, Aligarh, 1957, Vol. II, pp. 228-29.

• Historians have recorded that in the auspicious year AH 792 (AD 1389-90) Sultãn Nasîru’d-Dîn got founded a city named Muhammadãbãd, after the name of Prophet Muhammad, at a place known as Kãlpî which was a home of the accursed infidels, and he got mosques raised in place of temples for the worship of Allãh. He got palaces, tombs and schools constructed, and ended the wicked ways of the infidels, and promoted the Shariat of Prophet Muhammad.
  • Sultãn Nasîru’d-Dîn Mahmûd Shãh Tughlaq (AD 1389-1412) Kalpi (Uttar Pradesh) Tãrîkh-i-Muhammadî in S.A.A. Rizvi in Tughlaq Kãlina Bhãrata, Aligarh, 1957, Vol. II, pp. 27ff

• As an example, the exploits of one of Jahangir’s commanders, Abdullah Khan Uzbeg Firoz Jung, can provide an idea of the excessive cruelty perpetrated by the government. Peter Mundy, who travelled from Agra to Patna in 1632 saw, during his four days’ journey, 200 minars (pillars) on which a total of about 7000 heads were fixed with mortar. On his way back four months later, he noticed that meanwhile another 60 minars with between 2000 and 2400 heads had been added and that the erection of new ones had not yet stopped. Abdullah Khan’s force of 12,000 horse and 20,000 foot destroyed, in the Kalpi-Kanauj area, all towns, took all their goods, their wives and children as slaves and beheaded and ‘immortered’ the chiefest of their men.
  • Mundy, Travels, II, pp. 90, 185, 186. quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 7

• Abdulla Khan Uzbeg’s force of 12,000 horse and 20,000 foot destroyed, in the Kalpi-Kanauj area alone, all towns, took all their goods, their wives and children as slaves and beheaded and ‘immortered’ (fixed heads with mortar in walls and pillars) the chiefest of their men. No wonder he once declared that “I made prisoners of five lacs of men and women and sold them. They all became Muhammadans. From their progeny there will be crores by the day of judgement.”
  • Shah Nawaz Khan, Maasir-ul-Umara, I, 105. quoted from K.S. Lal, Muslim slave system in medieval India, chapter 6