Lahore, the Capital City of Punjab

    With a population of more than 2.5 million, Lahore is Pakistan's second largest city. It
     occupies a choice site in the midst of fertile alluvial plains. Ptolemy's "Geographia",
    written about AD I50, refers to it as "Labokla" and locates it with reference to the Indus,
    the Ravi, the Jhelum and the Chenab rivers. The city next crops up in literature in connection
     with the campaigns of the Turkish dynast Mahmud of Ghazni against the Rajas of Lahore
     between I00I and I008. Around this time it established itself as the capital of the Punjab
    and thereafter began to play an important and growing role as a centre of  Muslim power and
    influence in the subcontinent. Its heyday was the Mughal  era from the early sixteenth century      onwards and, as Mughal power began to decline in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries,
    Lahore suffered a concomitant period of ignominy and political eclipse. It was here, at the
    beginning of the nineteenth century, that the Sikh ruler Ranjit Singh declared himself
    Maharajah of the Punjab and allowed his troops to desecrate many of the city's beautiful
    Islamic shrines- including the Badshahi Mosque which was, for a while, converted into a
     powder magazine. By the time British occupied Lahore in I849, one writer moved to describe
     the city as 'a mere expanse of crumbling ruins'. Happily, this was an exaggeration and today
    the great buildings laid down by the long-vanished Mughal emperors may be seen in much of
    their original splendour. All the adverse influences since then seem to have been washed
    away, like sediment carried off by a flood, leaving behind the fundamental character and
    beauty of this old Islamic settlement. Fittingly, it was here in I940 that the Muslim League
    made its first formal demand for the establishment of a Muslim homeland. A towering and
   graceful monument, the Minar-e-Pakistan now stands on the site of the passing of the Pakistan
   Resolution. Nearby, the massively fortified walls of Lahore Fort speak eloquently of the
   centuries of passing history that they have witnessed. The fort antedates the coming of Mahmud
   of Ghazni in the eleventh century, was ruined by the Mangols in I241, rebuilt in I267,
   destroyed again by Timurlane in I398 and rebuilt once more in I421. The great Mughal
   emperor Akbar replaced its mud walls with solid brick masonry in I566 and extended it
   northwards. Later Jehangir, Shah Jehan and Aurangzeb all added the stamps of their widely
  differing personalities to its fortification, gateways and palaces. The fort encloses an area of
  approximately thirty acres and it is possible to spend many hours wandering there, lost in
  contemplation of times gone by, trying to reconstruct in your imagination a way of life that the
   world will never see again. The buildings within its walls are a testament to the gracious
   style of Mughal rule at its height, in which every man knew his place and courtly behaviour had
    been refined into an elaborately startified social code. Much of the architecture reflects this
    code. From a raised balcony in the Diwan-e-Aam, or Hall of Public Audience, built by Shah      Jehan in I63I, the emperors looked down on the common people over whom they ruled when
    they came to present petitions and to request the settlement of disputes. Wealthier citizens and
   the nobility were allowed to meet their emperors on a level floor in the Diwan-e-Khas, the
   Hall of Special Audience-which was also built by Shah Jehan, in I633. While the Hall of
   Audience are characterized by their strict functionality, other buildings raised under Shah
   Jehan's patronage are styled in a more imaginative and fanciful mood. Of these the Shish
    Mahal, or Palace of Mirrors, which stands on the fort's north side, is by far the most splendid.
    It consists of a row of high domed rooms, the roofs of which are decked out with hundreds of     thousands of tiny mirrors in the fashion of the traditional Punjabi craft of "Shishgari" (designs
    made from mirror fragments). A fire-brand lit inside any part of the Palace of Mirrors throw
    back a million  reflections that dizzy the eye and seem like a galaxy of far-off stars turning in
    an ink-blue firmament. Another magnificent remnant of the Mughal era, also partially
    andalized in the late eighteenth century by the invading Sikhs, is the Shalimar Garden
     which stands on the Grand Trunk Road about eight kilometers to the east of  the old part of
    Lahore. "Shalimar" means 'House of Joy' and, in truth, the passing centuries have done nothing
    to detract from the indefinable atmosphere of light-heartedness and laughter that characterizes
    this green and peaceful walled retreat. A canal runs the entire 2,006 foot (6II meters) length
    of the garden and from it 450 sparkling fountains throw up a skein of fresh water that cools and
    refreshes the atmosphere, making this a favourite place for afternoon walks for the citizens of
    modern Lahore. 
    Lahore is rightly regarded as the cultural, architectural and artistic center of Pakistan; indeed,
    the city is so steeped in historical distinction that it would be possible to spend a lifetime
    studying it without learning everything that there is to learn.