For centuries the fort of Kangra was the seat of the Chibs’ ancestors, the Katoch rajas. Mahmud of Ghazni plundered it, Firoz Shah Tughlaq besieged it and Jahangir finally took it: the story of the ancestral stronghold of the Katoch rajas.
Rupyal, Barwana, Ghaniyal, Ghaghial and ten more: the fourteen septs of the Chib clan, the ancestors they are named after, and the old order of mandis, garhs and dheris that once divided the kingdom of Bhimber.
In the 1960s the waters of Mangla Dam drowned old Mirpur and some 280 villages in the Chib homeland. Many of the displaced families set out for Britain, and today Chib families live across the world. How a dam shaped the modern Chib story.
For three centuries the Mughal emperors passed through Bhimber on their way to Kashmir. The Chib capital stood at the foot of the hills, where the imperial road began its climb, and the ruins of the imperial sarai still stand above the town.
Faith, lineage, honour and hospitality: the customs that have bound the Muslim Chib Rajputs together for five centuries, from the old fiefs of the Bhimber kingdom to the family gatherings of today.
Perched above a lake in the Samahni valley, Baghsar Fort watched over the Mughal road to Kashmir. It came under the Chib rajas of Bhimber, and it holds the burial place of Emperor Jahangir’s entrails.
High above the Jhelum at Mangla stands an ancient fort long called a gateway to Kashmir. According to the histories of the hill states, it was the capital of Khari-Khariali, the state founded by Kharak Chand, brother of Raja Chib Chand.
On a high ridge above Karjai village near Khuiratta in Kotli District stand the ruins of Karjai Fort, also known as Devigarh, one of the hill forts of the old Chibhal country.
At Jandi Chontra near Bhimber lies the shrine of Baba Shadi Shaheed, ancestor of the Muslim Chibs. For generations Chib families have brought their sons here for the ceremony of the first haircut.