History of Jamrud Fort (جمرود)

Jamrud is compound of two words ; 'Jam' and 'Rud'. Jam or Jamshed is a legendary king of Iran who is mentioned in Shahnama of Ferdosi. Rud means river in Farsi. So Jamrud means the river of Jamshed.

Dr.D.B.Spooner writes ;

"I had the pleasure of going up to Ali Masjid in the Khyber in the spring of 1887, and on my way there, of seeing the fort of Jamrud. While there, I heard the tradition, that the fort was connected with the name of King Jamshed of the Peshdadian dynasty of Persia. The late Professor James Darniesteter, when he was in India, visited the place, when at Peshawar a short time before me, and he records as having heard the same tradition." [1]

There is a place 38 miles from Ghazni who is also named Jamrud. The inhabitants of that Jamrud are Hazaras.

Jamrud is first mentioned as Jam in his memoirs. He writes, "Crossing Khyber in a march or two, we dismounted at Jam"........"we broke up our plan of crossing the Sind-water into Hindustan, marched from Jam, forded the Bara-water, and dismounted not far from the pass through the Muhammad-mountain" [2]

Jamrud was a Mughal military outpost and there was a Mughal fort built here. The present mud fort stands on a high mound, it seems that some sort of construction was in existence here. Moorcraft, who came here before the construction of the modern fort, writes: "The plain terminated at the foot of the Khyber range. It appeared to have been formerly a place of importance, from the number of broken stone walls scattered about, and some large tanks, one of which was sixty yards square." [3]

Jamrud fort of Mughals

The existing Jamrud fort was built by Hari Singh Nalwa in December 1836 who had named it Fatehgarh. English explorer William Moorcraft who visited Jamrud in 1824 before the construction of the Sikh fort, noted ruins of a building there. He writes:

"The plain terminated at the foot of the Khyber range. It appeared to have been formerly a place of importance, from the number of broken stone walls scattered about, and some large tanks, one of which was sixty yards square." [4]

There existed a Mughal fort or a fortified village/town at Jamrud in which Mughal army was stationed in 16th and 17th century. The ruins of the old fort were located a quarter or a half mile to the west of Fatehgarh. [5]

From 1674 to 1678, the Maharaja Jaswant Singh of Marwar served as thanedar of Jamrud for Mughals. The author of Fatuhat-i-Alamgiri writes: "Meanwhile 'Ruknus Sultanat' (the pillar of the state) Maharaja Jaswant Singh came from the thana (post) of Jamrud and paid his respects to the emperor (Aurangzeb Alamgir, at Hasan Abdal), who conferred upon the Maharaja a special robe with an elephant worth Rs.20,000/-, sword with studded hilt and seven trays of fruits." [6]

References

1- Asiatic Papers, Vol-II, 1917, p-264
2- "Baburnama", translated into English by A.S.Beveridge, pp.229-230
3- "Travels in the Himalayan provinces of Hindustan and the Panjab; in Ladakh and Kashmir; in Peshawar, Kabul, Kunduz, and Bokhara", William Moorcroft, p-345
4- 'The Culcutta Review', 1844, p-484
5- 'Futahat-i-Alamgiri' by Ishwardas Nagar, English translation, p-111
6- "Peshawar : Historic city of the frontier" by Hasan Dani", p-195.