(1901) 75,128. It was founded in 1647 during the reign of Shah Jahan, whose name it bears, by Nawab Bahadur Khan, a Pathan. His mosque is the only building of antiquarian interest. There is a manufacture of sugar, but no great trade.
The District of Shahjahanpur has an area of 1727 sq. m. It consists of a long and narrow tract running up from the Ganges towards the Himalayas, and is for the most part level and without any hills. The principal rivers are the Gumti, Khanaut, Garai and Ramganga. To the north-east the country resembles the tarai in the preponderance of waste and forest over cultivated land, in the sparseness of population and in general unhealthiness. Between the Gumti and the Khanaut the country varies from a rather wild and unhealthy northern region to a densely inhabited tract in the south, with a productive soil cultivated with sugar-cane and other remunerative crops. The section between the Deoha and Garai comprises much marshy land;but south of the Garai, and between it and the Ramganga, the soil is mostly of a sandy nature. From the Ramganga to the Ganges in the south is a continuous low country of marshy patches, alternating with a hard clayey soil that requires much irrigation in parts. Shahjahanpur contains a number of jhils or lakes, which afford irrigation for the spring crops. The climate is very similar to that of most parts of Oudh and Rohilkhand, but moister than that of the Doab. The annual rainfall averages about 37 in. In 1901 the population was 921,535. The principal crops are wheat, rice, pulse, millets, sugar-cane and poppy. The district suffered very severely from the famine of 1877–1879. It is traversed by the Lucknow-Bareilly section of the Oudh and Rohilkhand railway, with a branch northwards from Shahjahanpur city. At Rosa is a large sugar refinery and rum distillery.
Shahjahanpur was ceded to the English by the nawab of Oudh in 1801. During the Mutiny of 1857 it became the scene of open rebellion. The Europeans were attacked when in church; three were shot down, but the remainder, aided by a hundred faithful sepoys, escaped. The force under Lord Clyde put a stop to the anarchy in April 1858, and shortly afterwards peace and authority were restored.
SHAHPUR, a town and district of British India, in Rawalpindi division of the Punjab. The town is near the left bank of the river Jhelum. Pop. (1901) 9386. The district of Shahpur has an area of 4840 sq. m. Its most important physical subdivisions are the Salt range in the north, the valleys of the Chenab and Jhelum, and the plains between those rivers and between the Jhelum and the Salt range. The characteristics of these two plains are widely different: the desert portion of the southern plain is termed the bar; the corresponding tract north of the Jhelum is known as the thal. The climate of the plains is hot and dry, but in the Salt range it is much cooler; the annual rainfall averages about 15 in. Tigers, leopards and wolves are found in the Salt range, while small game and antelope abound among the thick jungle of the bar. In 1901 the population was 524,259, showing an increase of 6% in the decade. The principal crops are wheat, millets, pulses and cotton. Irrigation is effected from government canals, and also from wells. The largest town and chief commercial centre is Bhera. The district is traversed by two branches of the North-Western railway.
Shahpur passed into the hands of the English along with the rest of the Punjab in 1849. During the Mutiny of 1857 the district remained tranquil, and though the villages of the bar gave cause for alarm no outbreak of sepoys occurred. Since annexation the limits and constitution of the district have undergone many changes.
SHAHRASTĀNĪ [Abū'l-Fatḥ Maḥommed ibn 'Abdalkarīm ush-Shahrastānī] (1076 or 1086–1153) Arabian theologian and jurist, was born at Shahrastān in Khorasan and studied at Jurjānīyah and Nīshāpūr, devoting his attention chiefly to Ash'arite theology. He made the pilgrimage in 1116, on his way back stayed at Bagdad for three years, then returned to his native place. His chief work is the Kitāb ul Milal wan-Niḥal, an account of religious sects and philosophical schools, published by W. Cureton (2 vols., London, 1846) and translated into German by T. Haarbrücker (2 vols., Halle, 1850–1851). After a preface of five chapters dealing with the divisions of the human race, an enumeration of the sects of Islam, the objections of Satan against God and against Mahomet and the principles on which the sects may be classified, he deals with (1) the sects of Islam in detail, (2) the possessors of a written revelation (Jews and Christians) or something resembling it (the Magi), (3) the men who follow their own reason, i.e. the philosophers of Greece and their followers among the Moslems; the pre-Islamic Arabs, the Indians and the heathen. Among Shahrastānī's other works still in manuscript only are a history of philosophers, a dogmatic text-book and a treatment of seven metaphysical questions.
A brief account of him is given on the authority of his pupil, the historian Sam'āni, in Ibn Khallikān, vol. ii., pp. 675 ff. (G. W. T.)
SHAHRUD, the capital of the Shahrud-Bostam province of Persia, situated about 258 m. E. of Teheran, on the highroad thence to Meshed, at an altitude of 4460 ft., in 36° 25' N., 54° 59' E. It has a population of about 10,000, post and telegraph offices, and a transit trade between western Khorasan and Astarabad. Although capital of the province, it is not the residence of the governor, who prefers the more healthy Bostam, a small city with fine gardens and a mosque of the 14th century, lying 3 m. to the north-east.
SHAH SHUJA (1780?-1842), king of Afghanistan, was the son of Timur Shah, and grandson of Ahmad Shah, founder of the Durani dynasty. After conspiracies that caused the dethronement of two brothers, Taman Shah and Mahmud Shah, he became king in 1803. He was, however, in his turn driven out of Afghanistan in 1809 by Mahmud Shah, and found refuge and a pension in British territory. Distrusting the attitude of the Amir Dost Mahommed towards Russia, Lord Auckland in 1839 attempted to restore Shah Shuja to the throne against the wishes of the Afghan people. This policy led to the disastrous first Afghan War. After the retreat of the British troops from Kabul, Shah Shaja shut himself up in the Bala Hissar. He left this retreat on the 5th of April 1842, and was immediately killed by the adherents of Dost Mahommed and his son Akbar Khan.
SHAIRP, JOHN CAMPBELL (1819-1885), Scottish critic and man of letters, was born at Houstoun House, Linlithgowshire, on the 30th of July 1819. He was the third son of Major Norman Shairp of Houstoun, and was educated at Edinburgh Academy and Glasgow University. He gained the Snell exhibition, and entered at Balliol College, Oxford, in 1840. In 1842 he gained the Newdigate prize for a poem on Charles XII., and took his degree in 1844. During these years the “Oxford movement” was at its height. Shairp was stirred by Newman's sermons, and he had a great admiration for the poetry of Keble, on whose character and work he wrote an enthusiastic essay; but he remained faithful to his Presbyterian upbringing. After leaving Oxford he took a mastership at Rugby under Tait. In 1857 he became assistant to the professor of humanity in the university of St Andrews, and in 1861 he was appointed to that chair. In 1864 he published Kilmahoe, a Highland Pastoral, and in 1868 he republished some articles under the name of Studies in Poetry and Philosophy. In 1868 he was presented to the principalship of the United College, St Andrews, and lectured from time to time on literary and ethical subjects. A course of the lectures was published in 1870 as Culture and Religion. In 1873 Principal Shairp helped to edit the life of his predecessor J. D. Forbes, and in 1874 he edited Dorothy Wordsworth's charming Recollections of a Tour in Scotland. In 1877 he was elected professor of poetry at Oxford in succession to Sir F. H. Doyle. Of his lectures from this chair the best were published in 1881 as Aspects of Poetry. In 1877 he had published The Poetic Interpretation of Nature, in which he enters fully into the “old quarrel,” as Plato called it, between science and poetry, and traces with great clearness the ideas of nature in all the chief Hebrew, classical and English poets. In 1879 he contributed a life of Robert Burns to the “English Men of Letters” series. He was re-elected to the chair of
