Sindh’s lion city rose when the Indus drowned Khudabad
Hyderabad, also called Neroonkot, is Sindh’s second city after Karachi and Pakistan’s seventh-largest—capital of Hyderabad Division. Mian Ghulam Shah Kalhoro founded it in 1768 on Ganjo Takkar, a limestone ridge, after floods threatened the old Kalhora seat at Khudabad some 150 kilometres inland of Karachi.
The name honours Ali—haydar for lion plus ābād for settlement—hence “Lion City.” Locals once knew the ridge as Neroonkot, tied to a ruler named Neroon and, by tradition, to a town taken by Muhammad bin Qasim in 711. Pacco Qillo, the baked-brick “Strong Fort,” began in 1768 across thirty-six acres and finished in 1769; Shah Makki’s tomb gained its own Kacha Qila. A stone said to bear Ali’s footprint, a gift from Iran’s shah, entered the Qadamgah pilgrimage site.
Security pulled artisans from across Sindh; Khudabad’s Sonaras, Amils, and Bhaibands migrated and kept “Khudabadi” in their community names. Talpur Mir Fateh Ali Khan seized Hyderabad in 1775 and made it capital in 1789, renovating the fort for three years. By the early 1830s Henry Pottinger counted 341 ships in nineteen days. Goldsmiths, cloth from rural Sindh, calligraphers, and Thatta carpets fed markets from Khorasan to Kashmir; some wares even reached London’s Great Exhibition of 1851.
British victory at the Battle of Hyderabad on 24 March 1843 ended Talpur rule and shifted Sindh’s capital into Bombay Presidency. Sindwork handicrafts later linked Hindu Bhaiband merchants to Egypt’s tourist trade and East Asian circuits. The municipality dates to 1853; Kotri Bridge (1900) tied the city to Karachi by rail. Tagore called early-twentieth-century Hyderabad India’s “most fashionable” city. After 1947 it briefly served as Sindh’s provincial capital (1947–1955); departing Hindu majorities and Muhajir arrivals remade its language map.
Source: Hyderabad, Pakistan
