MULTAN or MOOLTAN, a city, district and division of British India, in the Punjab. The city is 4 m. from the left bank of the Chenab, near the ancient confluence of the Ravi with that river. Pop. (1931), 119,457. The city is enclosed on three sides by a wall, but large and irregular suburbs have grown up outside the wall. The principal buildings in the Fort include the shrines of two Mohammedan saints and an ancient Hindu temple. The cantonments form the headquarters of a brigade. Multan has manufactures of carpets, silk and cotton goods, shoes, glazed pot tery and enamel work, and an annual horse fair. It is moreover one of the most important trade-centres in the Punjab.
The District of Multan occupies the lower angle of the Bari Doab, or tract between the Sutlej and the Chenab, with an extension across the Ravi. Area, 5,892 sq.m. The population in 1931 was 1,174,900. The principal crops are wheat, millet, pulse, oil-seeds, cotton and indigo. There are factories for ginning and pressing cotton. Indigo is made only by native processes. Irriga tion was till recently conducted only by inundation channels from the boundary rivers, but there is now a large area irrigated from the lower Bari Doab permanent canal. The heat of Multan is
notorious.
The early Arab geographers mention Multan as forming part of the kingdom of Sind, which was conquered for the caliphate by Mohammed bin Kasim in the middle of the 8th century. On the dismemberment of the Mogul Empire in the middle of the i8th century, Multan fell to the Afghans, who held it with diffi culty against the Sikhs. At length, in 1818, Ranjit Singh, after a long siege carried the capital by storm; and in 1821 he made over the administration of Multan with five neighbouring districts to Sawan Mal, who raised the province to a state of prosperity by excavating canals and inducing new inhabitants to settle. After the establishment of the council of regency of Lahore, difficulties arose between Mulraj, son and successor of Sawan Mal, and the British officials, which led to his rebellion, and culminated in the second Sikh war and the annexation of the whole of the Punjab. The city of Multan, after a stubborn defence, was captured in January 1849. The district at once passed under direct British rule, and order was not disturbed even during the Mutiny.