Shahabad Town, Hardol

Select Language Afrikaans Albanian Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Basque Belarusian Bulgarian Bengali Catalan Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English Estonian Filipino Finnish French Galician Georgian German Greek Gujarati Haitian Creole Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Javanese Kannada Khmer Korean Latvian Lithuanian Macedonian Malay Maltese Marathi Nepali Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Serbian Slovak Slovenian Spanish Swahili Swedish Tamil Telugu Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Vietnamese Welsh Yiddish

This article has been extracted from THE IMPERIAL GAZETTEER OF INDIA , 1908. OXFORD, AT THE CLARENDON PRESS.

Note: National, provincial and district boundaries have changed considerably since 1908. Typically, old states, ‘divisions’ and districts have been broken into smaller units, and many tahsils upgraded to districts. Some units have since been renamed. Therefore, this article is being posted mainly for its historical value.

Shahabad Town

Head-quarters of the tahsil the same name in Hardol District, United Provinces, situated in 27 38' N. and 79 57' E., on the Oudh and Rohilkhand Railway. Population (1901), 20,036. The town was founded in 1677 by Nawab Diler Khan, an Afghan officer of Shah Jahan, who was sent to suppress a rising in Shahjahan- pur. Diler Khan built a large palace called the Bar! Deorhi, and filled the town with his kinsmen and troops. Shahabad rose to con- siderable importance during Mughal rule, but declined under the Nawabs of Oudh. It was still a considerable town when visited by Tieffenthaler in 1770, but Tennant found it an expanse of ruins in 1799. In 1824 Bishop Heber described it as a considerable town or almost city, with the remains of fortifications and many large houses.

The inhabitants have obtained notoriety for the ill-feeling which exists between Hindus and Musalmans, and serious riots took place in 1850 and 1868. Nothing is left of the Ban Deorhl but two fine gateways, and Diler Khan's tomb is also in ruins. The fine Jama Masjid erected by the same noble is still used. Shahabad contains the usual tah&fi offices and also a nmnsifi, a dispensary, and a branch of the American Methodist Mission. It has been administered as a municipality since 1872.

During the ten years ending 1901 the income and expenditure averaged Rs. ir,ooo. In 1903-4 the income was Rs. 17,000, chiefly derived from taxes on houses and professions and trades, and from rents and market dues, while the expenditure was also Rs. 17,000. A daily market is held, and grain and sugar are exported. The town is noted for the vegetables and fruit produced in the neighbourhood. Fine cotton cloth used to be woven > here, but the manufacture is extinct. There are three schools for boys and one for girls, with a total of 400 pupils.