History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v3.c42.s5.5

v3.c42.s5.5

The district of Chatgaon was for many centuries the debatable land between the Muslim rulers of Bengal and the Mongoloid chiefs of Arrakan. Early in the 15th century a fugitive Rajah of Arrakan had taken refuge in Bengal and been restored (1430) to the throne by a Muslim army from Gaur. He had promised to be tributary to his patron, and he and his successors for many generations used to add Muslim titles, like Ali Khan, Sikandar Shah and Salim Shah, to their Burmese Pali names and to issue coins stamped with the Muslim confession of faith (*kalima*). But in the very next reign the Arrakanese threw off their political dependence on Bengal, and a little later (1459) they wrested the whole of the Chatgaon district from the Bengal Sultan, Barbak Shah. The decay of the Pathan monarchy and the anarchy attending the long-drawn Mughal conquest of Bengal in Akbar's reign gave the Arrakanese a free hand, and they now consolidated their authority over Chatgaon and even seized parts of the Noakhali and Tippara districts, up to the Meghna river.