Gurgaon district

Gurgaon district, officially known as Gurugram district, is one of the 22 districts of Haryana in northern India. The city of Gurgaon is the administrative headquarters of the district. The population is 1,514,432. It is one of the southern districts of Haryana. On its north, it is bounded by the district of Jhajjar and the Union Territory of Delhi. Faridabad district lies to its east. To its south lie the districts of Palwal and Nuh. To the west lies Rewari district.

According to Mahabharata (900 BCE), the area was granted by the eldest Pandava king, Yudhishthira, to their teacher, Dronacharya. Later, it passed into the hands of the Maurya Empire and to invaders like the Parthians and the Kusanas, and the Yaudheya (after they expelled Kushanas from the area between Yamuna and Satluj). Yodheyas was subjugated by king Rudradaman I of the Indo-Scythians and later by the Gupta Empire and then by Hunas, who were in turn overthrown by Yashodharman of Mandsaur and then by Yashovarman of Kannauj. The area was also ruled by Harsha (590 - 467 CE) and Gurjara-Pratihara (mid 7th century CE to 11th century). The Tomara dynasty, who founded Dhillika in 736 CE, who were earlier tributaries of Partiharas, overthrew Partiharas. Tomaras were defeated by was defeated by defeated by Vigraharaja IV who were in turn were overthrown in 1156 CE by king Visaladeva Chauhan of Chauhan Dynasty.

After the defeat, Prithviraj Chauhan conquered the area of Gurgaon, Nuh, Bhiwani and Rewari in 1182 CE. However he later lost it to the Ghurids under Muhammad Ghori following the Second Battle of Tarain. Following the defeat of Prithviraj Chauhan in his turn in 1192 CE, the area came under Qutb ud-Din Aibak (1206 CE) of Delhi Sultanate who defeated and killed Prithviraj's son Hemraj who had invaded Mewat area from Alwar. Meo - who were mostly Hindu during those times - killed Sayyid Wajih-ud-Din who had been sent by Qutb ud-Din Aibak to subjugate the Meos. The Meos were later conquered and pacified by a nephew of Aibak called Miran Hussain Jang who led the Delhi Sultanate army which conquered the Mewat region sometime between 1207-1210. Many Meo converted to Islam, allegedly some in forced conversions. Those Meo who remained Hindus were obliged to pay the non-Muslim military exemption tax known as the Jizya. In 1249 CE, Balban killed 2000 rebellious Meos. Meo rebels took away large numbers of horses from Balban's army in 1257-58 CE. In 1260 CE, Balban retaliated by overrunning the Mewat area once again and killing 250 Meo prisoners and slaughtering 12,000 women, children and surviving men.

At the time of the Timurid conquests in India and the invasion of Timur in 1398 CE, Sonpar Pal, titled Bahadur Nahar, of the Hindu Jadu gotra, was the prominent king of the area who constructed the fort called Kotla Bahadur Nahar near Kotla lake at the village of Kotla, Nuh. Under the patronage of Delhi sultan Firuz Shah Tughlaq, Sonpar Pal converted to Islam with the new name Raja Nahar Khan and became the founder of the Khanzada Rajputs after submitting to Timur. In 1421 CE, Khizr Khan, the Sayyid dynasty king of Delhi, defeated Raja Nahar Khan's converted son Jalal Khan of Mewat and Kotla fort. When, in 1425, converted grandsons of Bahadur Nahar named Jalal Khan and Abdul Qadir (Jallu and Qaddu) revolted, they were defeated by Sultan of Delhi Mubarak Shah (1421– 1434 CE), who overran Mewat and killed Abdul Qadir. Jalal Khan continued the native Mewati rebellion against the Delhi Sultanate after Mubarak Shah was forced to deal with Jasrat Khokhar who had conquered the Punjab.

In 1527, Hasan Khan Mewati, a descendant of Sonpar Pal, sided with Rajput king Rana Sanga and they were defeated by the invading Mughal forces of Babur at the Battle of Khanwa where Hasan Khan Mewati was killed by the Mughals, and his son Nihad Khan, ruled Mewat as a vassal of the Mughals. Aurangzeb sent Jai Singh I to crush the revolting Khanzada Mewati chief Ikram Khan. After the death of Aurangzeb, Bahadurgarh and Farrukhnagar in the north were under the Baloch nawabs who were granted jagir in 1713 CE by the Mughal king Farrukhsiyar.

The central area of Badshapur was under Hindu Jat king Hathi Singh Kuntal while the south including Nuh was under another Jat king of Bharatpur State, Maharaja Suraj Mal.

During Maratha Empire the area was conquered by their Christian French generals in the late 18th century and they granted Farukhnagar to Begum Samru and Jharsa (Badshahpur) to her European husband Walter Reinhardt Sombre. Southern areas, including Nuh, stayed under the Bharatpur king Ranjit Singh and their vassal relatives, one of whom was Nahar Singh.

Gurgaon district was conquered by the British in 1803. On 30 December 1803, the Daulat Scindia signed the Treaty of Surji-Anjangaon with the British after the Battle of Assaye and Battle of Laswari and ceded to the British, Hisar, Panipat, Rohtak, Rewari, Gurgaon, Ganges-Jumna Doab, the Delhi-Agra region, parts of Bundelkhand, Broach, some districts of Gujarat and the fort of Ahmmadnagar.