page_title: Lahore
section_title: Late Mughal
hierarchical_section_title: Lahore / History / Mughals / Late Mughal
caption_attribution_description: English: Sunehri Masjid (The Golden Mosque) This is a photo of a monument in Pakistan identified as the PB-P-97
context_page_description: Lahore is the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab, and is the country's 2nd largest city after Karachi, as well as the 18th largest city proper in the world. Lahore is one of Pakistan's wealthiest cities with an estimated GDP of $65.14 billion as of 2017. Lahore is the largest city and historic cultural centre of the wider Punjab region, and is one of Pakistan's most socially liberal, progressive, and cosmopolitan cities.
  Lahore's origins reach into antiquity. The city has been controlled by numerous empires throughout the course of its history, including the Hindu Shahis, Ghaznavids, Ghurids, and Delhi Sultanate by the medieval era. Lahore reached the height of its splendour under the Mughal Empire between the late 16th and early 18th century, and served as its capital city for a number of years. The city was captured by the forces of the Afsharid ruler Nader Shah in 1739, and fell into a period of decay while being contested between the Afghans and the Sikhs. Lahore eventually became capital of the Sikh Empire in the early 19th century, and regained some of its lost grandeur. Lahore was then annexed to the British Empire, and made capital of British Punjab.
context_section_description: Civil wars regarding succession to the Mughal throne following Aurangzeb's death in 1707 lead to weakening control over Lahore from Delhi, and a prolonged period of decline in Lahore. Mughal preoccupation with the Marathas in the Deccan eventually resulted in Lahore being governed by a series of governors who pledged nominal allegiance to the ever weaker Mughal emperors in Delhi.
  Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah I died en route to Lahore as part of a campaign in 1711 to subdue Sikh rebels under the leadership of Banda Singh Bahadur. His sons fought a battle outside Lahore in 1712 for succession to the Mughal crown, with Jahandar winning the throne. Sikh rebels were defeated during the reign of Farrukhsiyar, when Abd as-Samad and Zakariyya Khan suppressed them.
  Nader Shah's brief invasion of the Mughal Empire in early 1739 wrested control away from Zakariya Khan Bahadur. Though Khan was able to win back control after the Persian armies had left, Nader Shah's invasion shifted trade routes away from Lahore, and south towards Kandahar instead. Indus ports near the Arabian Sea that served Lahore also silted up during this time, reducing the city's importance even further.
  Struggles between Zakariyya Khan's sons following his death in 1745 further weakened Muslim control over Lahore, thus leaving the city in a power vacuum, and vulnerable to foreign marauders.
caption: The Sunehri Mosque was built in the Walled City of Lahore in the early 18th century, when the Mughal Empire was in decline.
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