Thatta
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Thatta ننگر ٺٽو |
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| State : |
 Pakistan
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| Province : | Are | ||
| Coordinates : |
24 ° 45 ' N , 67 ° 55' E
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| Height : |
10 m
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| Residents : | 45,000 (2015) | ||
| Time zone : |
PST ( UTC + 5 )
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| Postal code : | 43130
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Thatta or Tatta ( Sindhi : ٺٽو ) is a city with about 45,000 inhabitants in the Pakistani province of Sindh . From the former heyday, which lasted until the 18th century, important buildings were preserved from the 15th century to the Mughal period , which are part of the world cultural heritage ( Shah Jahan mosque in the city and the burial ground on Makli hill outside).
Location and climate
Thatta is a few kilometers west of the Indus at an altitude of about 10 m above sea level. d. M. a good 100 km (driving distance) east of Karachi and at the same distance southwest of Hyderabad in the district of the same name. Downstream to the southwest, an approximately 100 km long road branches off to the village of Keti Bandar in the broad brackish water area of the estuary delta. At the time of the conquests of Alexander the Great , who died in 325 BC. BC reached the mouth of the Indus, the place of today's Thatta was still at the sea. The annual floods brought fertile soil with the sediments in the water and pushed a river delta about 200 km wide into the sea. At the beginning of the 18th century, the river bed shifted from about two kilometers west of the city a few kilometers to the east, one reason for Thatta's decline. Possibly the name comes from Sanskrit Tatastha , "on the river bank".
The climate in the southern part of Sindh is subtropical with hot summers, in which between May and August 45 ° C is reached, and cooler winters with a maximum of 27 ° C. Without artificial irrigation, the area would be a semi-desert. 15 kilometers to the west and one kilometer from the road to Karachi is Lake Haleji , a large sanctuary for water birds, crocodiles and a water reservoir for Karachi, which - like the entire region - suffers from a lack of fresh water. Lake Keenjihar, 24 km north in the direction of Hyderabad, is the largest freshwater lake in the country and, in addition to bird watching, offers facilities for Pakistani day trippers.
Characteristic for Thatta are traditional multi-storey houses made of wooden frames, which are filled with adobe bricks and whose wind towers ( Bādgir or Mangh ) protruding over the flat roofs can be seen from afar . These can also direct cooler wind to lower floors or release warm air outside. In contrast to the more complex wind towers of southern Iran, which have openings symmetrically on four sides, simpler structures with a sloping roof and only one opening in the direction of the prevailing wind direction southwest are sufficient in Sindh.
history
At the time of the Umayyad conquests from their area of origin in Arabia in a westerly direction as far as Spain and eastwards across the Indus, smaller, semi-nomadic tribal groups lived in the Sindh region. After the victory over the local Raja (711) north of Thatta, the conquerors under the Syrian general Muhammad ibn al-Qasim brought Islam to Sindh, which had been mostly Hindu or Buddhist until then , and the small army was not equipped to advance further eastwards. After all, a Muslim colony remained in Sindh, which was a province of the Abbassid dynasty until around 900 as As Sindh and with the two most important cities Multan and the seaport Banbhore . Thatta was under the control of the Ghaznavids until 1032 . Persian officially replaced the Arabic language at the time . All the following Islamic empires, including the Mughals, ruled the provinces from Delhi , with local rulers in Sindh temporarily gaining varying degrees of independence.
Under the supremacy of the Ghaznavids, but practically independent, Ibn Sumar, the ruler of Multan, took power in Sindh and founded the Sumra dynasty. The originally local spread of power of feudal family clans was then and still is characteristic of political rule and economic dominance. The Sindh is still predominantly in large estates today. The Sumra dynasty was able to continue to exist under the Sultanate of Delhi , which ruled northern India from the beginning of the 13th century and had taken direct control of the Sindh. From around 1317 their capital was Thatta until 1351 the Sammas clan came to power and also ruled from Thatta. It was the beginning of the heyday of Sufi poetry and mysticism in Sindh; many poets, like the Samma rulers, were buried in graves on Makli Hill. In 1520, the Samma ruler Jam Feroz was subjugated by Shah Beg of the Arghun clan , more precisely, the Tarkhun dynasty, which ruled the Sindh as part of the Multan province until the end of the century.
The Arghuns lost their territories from 1522, beginning with Kandahar ( Afghanistan ) in the west and until 1528 Multan to the founder of the Mughal dynasty Babur . The Tarkhun family, which ruled the southern part of Sindh, last lost their power to the Mughal Emperor Akbar I (1592). The northern Sindh had been under Akbar's control since 1573.
Previously, because of a civil war between the Tarkhuns, Muhammad Isa Tarkhun (Mirza Isa Khan I) asked the Portuguese for help. In 1555, 700 Portuguese arrived in 28 ships to find out at the time of their arrival that Isa Tarkhun had already won. After the latter refused to pay off the Portuguese soldiers, the Portuguese unceremoniously plundered the city, stole the enormous gold treasures and killed several thousand residents. Isa Tarkhun was waging war abroad at the same time. Nevertheless, Thatta remained an important cultural and economic center.
When Isa Tarkhun died in 1572, his sons were fighting for power. The cruelest of them, Muhammad Baki (Mirza Baki), became ruler of Sindh against the will of the father. He had unpopular nobles and scholars killed. When Baki offered his daughter and a large dowry to the Mughal emperor Akbar to wife, but the latter refused to accept the daughter and sent the daughter back, Baki killed himself in 1584. His grave, like that of the other rulers, is on Makli Hill. His son Mirza Jani Beg was a relief for the population. Because of his resistance against Akbar, the Tarkhun ruler Jani Beg became very popular with the population under the surname Sindhi Bacha ("Son of Sindh").
While the Mughal rule continued in the south, the Kalhoras clan began to gain influence as feudal lords in the upper Sindh and ruled there after the middle of the 16th century. They extended their territory from Multan to the south. They brought Thatta under their control in 1737 and relocated their capital here. The city became one of the largest trading centers in India. This happened around the same time as the Persian ruler Nadir Shah brought about the end of the Mughal Empire by invading Delhi. The Kalhoras only lost their power against the Baluch Clan of the Talpur in 1783. Three Talpur families ruled with the title Mir (which their descendants still bear in their name to this day) and were primarily concerned with isolating their respective spheres of power from the outside world and collecting taxes. Talpur rule came to an end in 1843 on the Miani battlefield. General Charles Napier conquered the Sindh for the British Empire and relocated the Sindh capital from Hyderabad to Karachi. The Talpur clans were provided by Napier with jagirs , which are lands lent for several years or for life, from which they collect taxes and continue to rule as feudal lords. In 1847 the area became part of the Bombay Presidency, from which it regained its independence in 1936.
Thatta was the capital of Sindh from the 14th to the end of the 16th century and one of the most important economic centers of the Indian subcontinent until the beginning of the 18th century. It was also a center of religious learning. Persian texts such as Rumi's poetry Masnawī were translated into Sindhi here, while Sindhi poetry was translated into Persian in the form of a Masnawi. At the beginning of his rule and during the succession disputes after the death of his father Jahangir , Shah Jahan spent some time in safe Thatta and left behind the Great Mosque named after him (built 1647–1649). The future emperor Aurangzeb lived in the city for some time as governor of the lower Sindh.
Shah Jahan Mosque
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The Shah Jahan Mosque serves as the Friday mosque . It is located in a new urban area about 1 km east of the center. Far from his birthplace Lahore and his seat of government Delhi, Shah Jahan commissioned one of the most beautiful mosques of the Mughal period in Thatta. According to inscriptions, construction began in 1644, and the complex of buildings was completed in 1647, around the same time as Shah Jahan's tomb, the Taj Mahal, which was built for his favorite wife . The external dimensions of the building, which is rectangular in the longer west-east axis, including the surrounding gardens, are approx. 305 × 170 m; the actual mosque building with a large inner courtyard ( sahn ) takes up about a quarter of the total area. The mosque was carefully restored in the 1970s and has largely been preserved in its original condition.
The design and material are atypical for Mughal architecture: the core of the mosques and mausoleums in the north Indian capitals of Lahore, Agra and Delhi is made of brick, which, however, was clad with white marble and red sandstone , so that it is nowhere to be seen kicked. Here, the sand-brown brickwork with white mortar strips and colored glazed tile mosaics was harmoniously coordinated. In contrast to the power-demonstrating monumental style of the Friday Mosque in Delhi with three high domes, there are no minarets at this mosque, which follows the Persian blueprint, only a large dome, but 93 small domes that subdivide the building from every point of view. In the inner courtyard there are two tall pishtaks with large ivan arches facing each other. The domes were laid out like celestial vaults with small, multi-colored star motifs, the transition to the octagonal substructure was designed by web-shaped webs. Thanks to the good acoustics of the roof domes, the prayer leader ( imam ) can be heard from the mihrāb or minbar to the rear of the mosque.
Makli hill
| Historic monuments in Makli, Thatta | |
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UNESCO world heritage 
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| Makli Hill - tomb of Sultan Ibrahim from 1598/99. Plastered brick building with a tapering dome on a high drum . There are deep niches on all eight sides; Entrances are in the north and south. The dome was originally covered with turquoise tiles. |
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| National territory: |
Pakistan
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| Type: | Culture |
| Criteria : | (iii) |
| Reference No .: | 143 |
| UNESCO region : | Asia and Pacific |
| History of enrollment | |
| Enrollment: | 1981 ( session 5 ) |
The necropolis begins 3 km west of the city on the road to Karachi. On an area of 10 km², according to other information 15 km², huge mausoleums are scattered over a hill between simple graves, ruins and stone fields near the former river bed of the Indus. The buildings were made of brick or limestone, most of them made of sandstone, and some were decorated with glazed tiles. The number of graves is estimated at 200-300,000 up to a million; built or laid out from the 14th to the 17th century by the Sumra, Arghun, Tarkhun and Mughals dynasties. It was an honorable burial place, which can be derived from the word Makkah-li ("Mecca for me"). Another derivation from the Sindhi would be from Makalla, "harbor" or from the Persian Makli - "dried out well".
Many Sufi mystics, whose Sindhi verses sung on their wanderings, are part of folk poetry, were buried on Makli Hill. According to Sindh tradition, 125,000 saints are said to be buried here. Numerous legends adorn the life of these saints and describe their graves. The mystical celebrations and dances on Makli Hill as a cult in front of the saints' graves must have been sprawling. It was a major annual pilgrimage destination. At the beginning of the 18th century, the somewhat more sober Sufi order of the Naqshbandi tried to counter the custom of excessive donations to the shrines. The first tomb on the hill in the 14th century was built for a Sufi saint.
It is about 2.5 kilometers from the entrance in the south, where the younger tombs of the Mughal period stand, to the most distant tombs of the older Sumra group in the north. For the last ruler of the Tarkhan, Mirza Jani Beg Tarkhan, an octagonal brick building with high Iwan keel arches on each outside was erected in the south within a square sandstone enclosure in 1599, which indicates the Central Asian roots of the Tarkhan dynasty. The dome has collapsed, dark blue glazed tiles with Koran inscriptions create a color contrast to the brown, hard-burnt bricks.
The square pavilion made of twelve sandstone pillars for Mirza Tughril Beg is significantly smaller. He was a successor to Mirza Jani Beg, was presumably installed by the Mughals as governor of Thatta and died in 1679. The stone construction is remarkable: the roof corners of the square were shortened to an octagon by flat stone slabs - a takeover from the Indian temple on which the small dome rises. To the west (Mecca) there is a wide wall with a deep mihrab.
The tomb of Mirza Jan Baba († 1570/1608), a hapless brother of the violent Mirza Baki, is made of yellow limestone and originally had three domes in a row, of which the middle one is still preserved. As with the pavilion for Tughril Beg, the tambour of the domes rests on stone beams as corner diagonals. The walls and especially the mihrab are overflowing with small stone reliefs in geometric and floral shapes, including stylized leaves, swastika and rosettes. As late compensation for the defeat against his brother, Mirza Jan Baba received one of the most beautiful tombs on Makli Hill from his son Mirza Isa Khan II.
This Mirza Isa Khan II. ( Isa Khan Tarkhan the Younger , † 1644) commissioned his own tomb around 1618, which was completed around 1640. A two-story double row of columns surrounds a central building with a dome and ivan niches on each outside. The square columns are completely covered with floral ornaments. It is a unique palace in this form. The yellow limestone was also decorated with the finest stone carvings on the inside and outside walls. The tomb stands in a wide courtyard enclosed by a wall with high passageways in the shape of keel arches on the four sides.
For the violent Mirza Baki ( Baqi Beg Tarkhan , 1565–1585), the third ruler of the Tarkhan, who had his brothers murdered in addition to many educated people and dervishes, the cenotaph was set up in the open air behind a high wall. Further graves and an octagonal grave pavilion are located within the complex.
The grave of his father Isa Khan I († 1565) is further north. It was he who called the Portuguese to help with their cannons against a neighboring king in 1555 and who ultimately did not need them. For the first time, geometric rhombus and rosette ornaments were executed as stone reliefs in this tomb in the Central Asian style. The (no longer existing) model of the early Tarkhan tombs was the mausoleum of Babur , who died in 1530 and was buried in a garden ( Bagh-e Babur ) in Kabul around 1544 .
Makli's best-preserved brick building is to the west of the street and was built in 1638/39 for Diwan Shurfa Khan, a minister of Shah Jahan. The compact, square and austere-looking building in the Persian style with round towers at every corner stands on a platform within the usual four-walled area. The outer walls were once colorfully covered with blue and white tiles.
Far to the north, in the burial ground of the Samma sultans, lies the grave of Mubarak Khan († 1490). His name was Darya Khan before his adoption by Sultan Nisamuddin, as his general he successfully fended off an attack by Sultan Babur. His sarcophagus stands on a high platform within a walled courtyard. It is the oldest larger grave building. The surrounding wall, crowned by battlements and over a meter thick, is lavishly decorated with arabesques and floral motifs and already shows an independent building tradition for the lower Sindh.
The range of architectural styles ranges from the strict Persian central building ( Diwan Shurfa Khan ) to the tomb for Sultan Nisamuddin (1460–1508) to the northeast of the tomb for Mubarak Khan, which is decorated with ornamental ribbons, corbels and projections . Indian influence is evident here, especially the tradition of Hindu temples from Gujarat . The latter formed the form for the balcony with turned pilasters and for blind arcades on the west wall of the square structure. Even the keel-arched niches were made in corbel technique, in accordance with Indian tradition, and not as real vaults. The assumption that material from an older Hindu temple was used for the construction is doubtful, even if miniatures of the North Indian Shikhara temple tower may suggest this. On the roof, trumpets made of protruding stones round off the square to form an octagon and a sixteen-sided base for the drum. A dome was planned, but was never added. The roof remained open. It is the best example of the amalgamation of cultures forming the Sindhi style.
Ecology and agriculture
As early as the Middle Ages, when the Indus flowed past the city at Makli Hill in the west, irrigation canals led into the city. Despite the heat and aridity of the area, rice can be grown on the annual floodplains of the Indus and on artificially irrigated fields . Sugar cane, wheat and cotton also thrive in the area. The construction of dams in Punjab since 1932 and in Sindh since 1947 has held back the floating debris from the river. Irrigation canals along the entire Indus allow only a reduced amount of water to reach Sindh. Both of these have an impact on the subsidence of the Indus delta, leading to sea water and brackish water in the canals penetrating further and further inland . The consequences of the irrigation of the fields through canals, hailed as the "Green Revolution" in the 1960s, is an increasing salinization of the soil, as the high groundwater level does not drain the water away but evaporates it. The Left Bank Outfall Drain from Thatta to the sea, funded by the World Bank in the 1980s, proved counterproductive. Since then, it has allowed seawater to penetrate further into the country and contribute to salinization. According to a study by the Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum from 2005, the coastline south of Thatta at a width of 35 kilometers may have to be abandoned in the next few years. A resettlement project presented in 2009 is intended to provide 500 ecological housing units for poor fishing families. Nevertheless, further controversial dam projects are planned along the Indus.
A flood disaster in August 2010 led to several dam bursts on the Indus and the flooding of numerous villages in the vicinity of Thatta. A large part of the 300,000 inhabitants in the Thatta area had left the area. The city itself was spared the flooding.
literature
- Tonny Rosiny: Pakistan. Three high cultures on the Indus: Harappa - Gandhara - The Mughals. DuMont Art Travel Guide, Cologne 1983, pp. 208–216 and 225
- Isobel Shaw: Pakistan Handbook. The Guidebook Company Limited, Hong Kong 1989, pp. 73, 74.
- Ahmad Hasan Dani: Thatta. Islamic Architecture. Institute of Islamic History Culture and Civilization, Islamabad 1982, pp. 191-197.
- Yasmeen Lari and Suhail Zaheer Lari: The Jewel of Sindh. Samma Monuments on Makli Hill. Heritage Foundation and Oxford University Press, Karachi 1997
- Mir Ali SherQani Thattavi: Makli Hill. A Center of Islamic Culture in Sindh. University of Karachi 1983
Web links
- Description of Thatta. ArchNet (history)
- Thatta: Necropolis of Makli. History and large-format photo documentation
- Ayaz Asif: Pakistan - Sindh - Makli Hill & Shah Jahan Mosque. (Photos)
- Maryam Juzer Kherulla: Makli. Alive with the story of a million dead. First published in: Dawn, May 17, 2003 (leading Pakistani daily newspaper)
- Makli Hügel, 20 photos of the graves ( memento from January 29, 2013 in the web archive archive.today )
Individual evidence
- ↑ Entry on the website of the UNESCO World Heritage Center ( English and French ).
- ↑ Nandita Bhavnani: Grave Tales. The Hindu, April 11, 2004
- ↑ Mohammad Umer Soomro: Sumra Dynasty (1011-1351). Heritage Society, Ismaili.net
- ↑ Mir Atta Muhammad Talpur: The Royal Talpurs of Sindh. fungood.in
- ↑ Jami 'Masjid. ArchNet
- ^ Kamil Khan Mumtaz: Architecture in Pakistan. Concept Media Pte Ltd, Singapore 1985: Shah Jahan Mosque, construction plan and description p. 101f ( Archnet : Chapter The Provinces. )
- ↑ Tonny Rosiny, p. 208
- ↑ Annemarie Schimmel : Mystical Dimensions of Islam. The history of Sufism. Insel Verlag, Frankfurt 1995, pp. 545, 563f
- ↑ 1570, Tonny Rosiny p. 211; 1608, Kamil Khan Mumtaz, p. 97. - Arabic inscriptions embellish the sculptured Mughal Tomb of Mirza Jan Baba which dates from the 17th c, Thatta: Foto vom Sarkophag
- ↑ Salome Zajadacz-Hastenrath: A Note on Babur's Lost Funerary Enclosure at Kabul. In: Gülru Necipoglu (ed.): Muqarnas XIV. An Annual on the Visual Culture of the Islamic World. EJ Brill, Leiden 1997, pp. 135-143. Online at ArchNet ( Memento of the original dated November 14, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Kamil Khan Mumtaz, Makli Hills pp. 96-100. Online at Archnet: Chap. The Provinces. ( Memento of the original from November 14, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Zofeen Ebrahim: Beyond the Storm, Eco-Friendly Dream Homes. ( Memento of the original from January 14, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. IPS, October 20, 2009
- ^ Ann-Kathrin Schneider: Irresponsible megaprojects. Suedasien.info, January 26, 2007
- ^ Flood sweeps several Thatta villages. AAJ News Pakistan, August 24, 2010
- ↑ Flood spares Thatta as waters recede. abc.net.au, August 30, 2010
Cultural heritage: Archaeological ruins in Moenjodaro (1980) | Taxila (1980) | Buddhist ruins of Takht-i-Bahi and adjacent relics in Sahr-i-Bahlol (1980) | Historic Monuments in Makli, Thatta (1981) | Fortress and Shalimar Gardens in Lahore (1981) | Rohtas Fortress (1997)