Jaunpur () is a city and a municipal board in Jaunpur district in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. It is located 228 km southeast of state capital Lucknow. Demographically, Jaunpur resembles the rest of the Purvanchal area in which it is located. History Earlier the Jaunpur district was ruled by the Bhar, historically known as Sultan, having its historical dates from 1359, when the city was founded by the Sultan of Delhi Feroz Shah Tughlaq and named in memory of his cousin, Muhammad bin Tughluq, whose given name was Jauna Khan. In 1388, Feroz Shah Tughlaq appointed Malik Sarwar, a eunuch, who is notorious for having been the lover of Feroz Shah Tughlaq's daughter, as the governor of the region. The Sultanate was in disarray because of factional fighting for power, and in 1393 Malik Sarwar declared independence. He and his adopted son Mubarak Shah founded what came to be known as the Sharqi dynasty (dynasty of the East). During the Sharqi period the Jaunpur Sultanate was a strong military power in Northern India, and on several occasions threatened the Delhi Sultanate. The Jaunpur Sultanate attained its greatest height under the younger brother of Mubarak Shah, who ruled as Shams-ud-din Ibrahim Shah (ruled 1402–1440). To the east, his kingdom extended to Bihar, and to the west, to Kanauj; he even marched on Delhi at one point. Under the aegis of a Muslim holy man named Qutb al-Alam, he threatened the Sultanate of Bengal under Shihabuddin Bayazid Shah. During the reign of Husain Shah (1456–76), the Jaunpur army was perhaps the biggest in India, and Husain decided to attempt a conquest of Delhi. However, he was defeated on three successive attempts by Bahlul Khan Lodi. It is a dominant trend in modern historiography of the period that this defeat was a cause of a large number of eunuchs in the military ranks. Finally, under Sikandar Lodi, the Delhi Sultante was able to reconquer Jaunpur in 1493, bringing that sultanate to an end. The Jaunpur Sultanate was a major center of Urdu and Sufi knowledge and culture. The Sharqi dynasty was known for its excellent communal relations between Muslims and Hindus, perhaps stemming from the fact that the Sharqis themselves were originally indigenous converts to Islam, as opposed to descendants of Persians or Afghans. Jaunpur's independence came to an end in 1480, when the city was conquered by Sikander Lodhi, the