Page:Gazetteer of the province of Oudh ... (IA cu31924073057345).pdf/521

MOH 513 side, are said to have come from Madína, and to have entered the pargana fifteen generations ago about the year 1550, under Shekh Abul Hasan Ansári, who drove out the Amethi Rajputs from Amethi Dingur, and earned for himself the title of Shekh-ul-Islám. Some one or more generations after Shekh Abul Hasan came Abul- Hasan Sáni, who had two sons, Shekh Salem and Ali Gauhar, Shekh Salem founded Salempur; and ten generations later his descendant, Moizz ud-dín, had a daughter who married Hidayat Ali, a Sayyad of Kkkori. His two sons, Saadat Ali and Mansur Ali, lived in Salempur, and inherited their father's estate. Saádat Ali had three sons—Nizam Ali, who by marriage became taluqdar of Paintepur, Hisám Ali, father of the present taluqdar, Chaudhri Nawab Ali, and Samsám Ali. Samsám Ali managed the whole estate, having in addition acquired the share of Mansur Ali, the second son of Hidáyat Ali, and dying without heir bequeathed it to his nephew, Nawab Ali, This family pretend to bave a right to the whole pargana by title of con- quest, and they are said to hold two farmáns—one dated 1026 Hijri (1617 Å.D.) from Jahangir, in the name of Mohi-ud-dín, fifth in descent from Abul-Hasan Sáni, and another from Farrukh Siar in the 2nd year of his reign (1128 Hijri, 1715 A. D.), in the name of Muhammad Asaf, confirming them in the office of chaudhri and zamindar of the par- gana. However vague and uncertain this title may have been, they seem to be traditionally looked upon as the owners of the soil. Thus the Jan- wars of Mau, at the extreme south-west of the pargana, relate that they received their villages from the Shekhs of Amethi ; and the owners of Bakás at the extreme west, and the Bais of Karora in the centre assert the Shekhs to have been the original zamindars, and we find also Shekh Abul Husan's descendants founding villages at scattered intervals througbout the whole pargana. Shekh Salem himself founds Salempur on the lands of Kheoli in the north-east of the pargana, and Salem pur Ucháka on the other boundary directly south. Chaudhri Nawab Ali holds all the villages founded by his ancestors and others, of which he acquired possession from the original inhabitants. Many of the double names involved show a prior Hindu origin and tradi- tion still remembers the names of the original villages on the lands of which the Shekhs founded their own villages. The Trans-Gumti villages mentioned belonged to the pargaua of Ibráhímabad which was also held by the Amethias, and which they lost at the same time with Amethi. The Chaudhri taluqdar holds half the village of Ihráhímabad in his sanad with others of the pargana. This estate amounts to 36 villages, of which 29 are in this district, and are assessed at Rs. 44,293. Musammát Qutb-un-nisa, taluqdar of Gauria, is the widow of Jahắngir Bakhsh Siddiqi Shekh, old pargana qánúugo of Amethi. This family is said to have come from Madína, and to have settled in Delhi in the time of Bábar Shah. From thence they were probably called by the family of the Ansári Shekhs,-from whom the taluqdar, Chaudhri Nawab Ali, has