Punjab again in 1799 Maharaja Ranjit
Singh was able to make gains in the chaos. He defeated Zaman in a battle
between Lahore and Amritsar. The citizens of Lahore, encouraged by Sada Kaur,
offered him the city and he was able to take control of it in a series of battles
with the Bhangi Misl and their allies. Lahore served as the capital city of the
Sikh Empire in accordance with Lahore being the capital of Punjab. While much
of Lahore's Mughal era fabric lay in ruins by the end of eighteenth century a
close struggle to gain control, rebuilding efforts under the Sikh Empire were
shaped by and indebted to Mughal practice. Maharaja Ranjit Singh moved into the
Mughal palace in Lahore's citadel. By 1812 he had mostly refurbished the city's
defenses by adding a second circuit of outer walls that followed the outline of
Akbar's original walls and were separated from them by a moat. The Maharaja
also partially restored Shah Jahan's decaying gardens at Shalimar, and British
maps of the area surrounding Lahore dating from the mid-nineteenth century show
that walled private gardens - many of them bearing the names of prominent Sikh
nobles - continued in the Mughal pattern under Sikh rule. The Sikh court
continued to endow religious architecture in the city, including a number of Sikh
gurdwaras, Hindu temples and mosques. The Sikhs and Hindus both belonging to
the indic religions, had good relations. During the relatively short periode of
the Sikh Empire, the structures and architecture of Lahore were rebuild which
were further developed during the British Raj.
Maharajah Ranjit Singh made Lahore his capital and was able to expand the
kingdom to the Khyber Pass and also included Jammu and Kashmir, while keeping
the British from expanding across the River Sutlej for more than 40 years.
After his death in 1839 the internecine fighting between the Sikhs and several
rapid forfeitures of territory by his sons, along with the intrigues of the
Dogras
