Fatehbad-The district Fatehbad,
Haryana was formed on 15 July, 1997. The district headquarter is situated
in Fatehbad town. Other smaller towns are Tohana, Ratia, Bhuna and Bhattu. The total area of Fatehbad district is
2,415 sq km and its population is 6,15,000. There are facilities for stay at PWD rest house, HSEB rest house, market
committee rest house and dharamsalas. The town is well provided with schools, college, hospital and other basic
necessities.
The Fatehbad town was founded by the emperor Firoze Shah Tughlaq and named after his son Fateh Khan in 1352
AD. The site on which the town was founded was a hunting ground. He dug a channel from the river Ghaggar in order to
supply the town with water. He also built a fort which is now in ruins, the fortification walls can be seen on the east.
of the town. He also built three forts in the neighboring villages in the name of his three sons. The old town was
surrounded by a wall which has been dismantled to a great extent except near the fort.
Formerly, Fatehbad was an important trade center for the export of surplus grain but with the construction of
Rewari-Bhatinda railway line, which runs about 20 km to the west of the town, the trade shifted
to Bhattu. But the town assumed greater importance after Independence when metalled roads provided important link and
the earlier importance of the town was revived.
The two important monuments in Fatehbad are the Lat and the Humayun Mosque.
Lat or a stone pillar measuring about 5 m in height and 1.90 m in circumference at the base. It was erected in the center
of an Idgah. The lower portion of the pillar is a mono-block of light buff sandstone and is possibly the remaining part of the
pillar that lies in the mosque at Hissar. It is more than likely that both these pillars once made a
single monolithic pillar which was possibly erected by Ashoka at Agroha or Hansi. Firoze Shah
Tughlaq had a craze for taking away such columns and transplanting them among his favorite complexes. The Ashokan
epigraph that was once engraved on the pillar was systematically chiseled off for writing the Tughlaq inscription recording
the genealogy of Firoze Shah in beautiful Tughra Arabic characters carved in high belief.
There are two inscriptions, one on a light colored rectangular sandstone studded into the left of the screen-wall of Idgah,
immediately behind or to the west of lat, praising the emperor Humayun and the other one is on a rectangular sand-stone
placed on the outer wall of the mosque enclosure and contains a well-known invocation to Ali in Arabic. The mosque can
still be seen in good conditions but lies in disuse.
Humayun Mosque is a small and a beautiful mosque. The legend assigns the association of the mosque to the Mughal
Emperor Humayun who on his flight after his defeat at the hands of Sher Shah Suri happened to pass through Fatehbad
on Friday and is said to have prayed at this mosque. The inscription praising Emperor Humayun was originally found here
and later studded into the screen-wall of the Idgah. The mosque is said to have been repaired by one Nur Rehmat in the
early eighties of the last century.
Two important archaeological sites have been found in this district. They are the
Kunal Mound and the Banawali Mound. Both these
sites seem to be a part of the Saraswati civilization of the
Vedic times. The ancient mound of Banawali previously called Vanawali, lies 14
km, north-west of Fatehbad on the right bank of the Rangoi Nala at 29° 37" 5' north latitude and 75° 23" 6'
east longitude. This proto-historic mound spread over an area of One sq. km, rise to a height of about 10 m due to
successive settlements on the earlier rubble.
