The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c15.23

v4.c15.23

¹ ‘“Sayyid Mahmūd was the first of the Bārha Sayyids that held office under the Tīmūrides.’ He was with Sikandar Sūr in Mānkot but, seeing that the cause of the Afghāns was hopeless he left Sikandar and went over to Akbar” (*Āīn-i-Akbarī*, I, 389). The Sayyids of Bārha, as distinguished for personal bravery as their kinsmen of Bilgrām are for their learning, derived their cognomen from twelve (*bāra*) villages which they held in the Muzaffarnagar District in the Upper Dūāb. Like the Sayyids of Bilgrām in Oudh they trace their origin to Sayyid Abu-’l-Farāh of Wāsit, who visited India in A.D. 1217. They reached the acme of their influence in the eighteenth century. See chaps. xiii and xiv of this volume, and W. Irvine, *J.A.S.B.* 1896, p. 175.