Hardoi is a village in Maharajganj block of

Rae Bareli district Raebareli district is a district of Uttar Pradesh state in northern India. The city of Raebareli is the district headquarters. This district is a part of Lucknow Division in Uttar Pradesh state. The total area of Raebareli district is 3,37 ...

, Uttar Pradesh, India. Located on the road from Maharajganj to

Bachhrawan Bachhrawan is a town and nagar panchayat in Raebareli district in the state of Uttar Pradesh, India. It is the seat of a community development block. It is located on the main Raebareli- Lucknow road, at the intersection with roads leading ...

, Hardoi historically served as the seat of a

pargana Pargana ( bn, পরগনা, , hi, परगना, ur, پرگنہ) or parganah, also spelt pergunnah during the time of the Sultanate period, Mughal times and British Raj, is a former administrative unit of the Indian subcontinent and each ...

and has a now-ruined fort built in the early 1400s under the Jaunpur Sultanate. As of 2011, its population is 2,308, in 415 households.

History

Hardoi was supposedly founded by and named after a Bhar named Hardeo. The Bhars were the original rulers of the region and are said to have successfully repelled an invasion by the Muslim folk hero

Ghazi Sayyid Salar Masud Ghazi Salar Masud or Ghazi Miyan (1014 – 1034 CE) was a semi-legendary Muslim figure from India. By the 12th century, he had become reputed as a warrior, and his tomb (''dargah'') at Bahraich, Uttar Pradesh, India, had become a place of pilgrima ...

in the 11th century. Agha Shahid, an attendant of Malik Taj-ud-Din of

, arrived to reinforce Salar Masud's forces but was killed in battle and is buried here. An old tradition connected with Agha Shahid's tomb holds that if someone disputes the authenticity of a legal document, then its holder places it on the tomb and the challenger tries to tear it off. According to legend, if the document is genuine, then the challenger's thumb will tear off instead of the paper. The Bhars of Hardoi were subjugated in the early 15th century by

Ibrahim Shah Sharqi Shams-ud-Din Ibrahim Shah Sharqi was the third sultan of the Jaunpur Sultanate, ruling from 1401 until his death in 1440.Nizamuddin Ahmad chronicles his date of death as 1436. However, numismatic evidence points to 1440. Early life and backgro ...

of the Jaunpur Sultanate. Ibrahim Shah had a mud fort (now in ruins) built here and granted the place to a follower of his named Sayyid Jalal-ud-Din. Later, at the end of the 16th century, Hardoi was listed in the

Ain-i-Akbari The ''Ain-i-Akbari'' ( fa, ) or the "Administration of Akbar", is a 16th-century detailed document recording the administration of the Mughal Empire under Emperor Akbar, written by his court historian, Abu'l Fazl in the Persian language. It for ...

as a ''mahal'' of the sarkar of Lucknow. Its proprietors were listed as Brahmins, it was assessed at a value of 359,748 dams, and it supplied a force of 300 infantry to the Mughal army. The 1901 census recorded Hardoi as having a population of 1,378 people, all of whom were Hindu and most of whom were Kurmis. The village was held by Kurmi tenants and it had 15 masonry houses, with the rest being built from mud. The 1961 census recorded Hardoi as comprising 2 hamlets, with a total population of 1,311 people (680 male and 631 female), in 355 households and 333 physical houses. The area of the village was given as 1,287

acre The acre is a unit of land area used in the imperial Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imp ...

s. At that point, it had a post office, 2 grain mills, 3 small manufacturers of clothing, and 2 small establishments involved in stone dressing, stone crushing, and/or making structural stone goods. The 1981 census recorded Hardoi as having a population of 1,640 people, in 339 households, and having an area of 526.51 hectares.

References

{{Raebareli district Villages in Raebareli district