Most of the historical documents and books are quiet about the art and craft produced in the early Muslim period of Lahore except for some sketchy information that we glimpse in different accounts. Before the arrival of Islam, Raja Jai Pal ruled Punjab. Mahmud of Ghazna conquered Lahore in 1021 AD. Hazrat Ali Hujveri, Husain Zanjani and Syed Ismael Muhaddis are worth mentioning scholars who lived in Lahore during Ghaznavid period. The city was full of cultural and artistic activities but the information about them is very scarce. An interesting source of information is the poetry written in that period by the poets of Lahore. These literary accounts give us references of architecture, painting, calligraphy, music and dance of Lahore.

(1)  Muhammad Shuja ul Din, “Siasi Aur Saqafati Tareekh,” Naqoosh, Lahore Nama (Lahore: Idara-i-Farogh-i-Urdu 1962), 35.

(2)    Noor Ahmad Chishti, Tahqeeqat i Chishti (Lahore: Alfaisal Publishers 1993),68.

(3)     Ibid., 68.

(4)    Ibid., 69.

(5)    Shuja ul Din, “Siasi Aur Saqafati Tareekh,” 36.

(6)    Ibid.

(7)    Ibid.

(8)    A Brief Account of the History and Antiquities of Lahore Part I, 5.

(9)    Kenhya Lal, Tareekh-i-Lahore (Lahore: Book Talk 2006), 21.

(10) Shuja ul Din, “Siasi Aur Saqafati Tareekh,” 36.

(11) Sayyad Hashmi Afridi, Maasar Lahore, Part 1 (Lahore: Idara-i-Saqafat-i-Islamia 1956), 207.

(12)    Shuja ul Din, “Siasi Aur Saqafati Tareekh,”  36.

(13) Ibid., VI.

(14) Shuja ul Din, “Siasi Aur Saqafati Tareekh,” 38.

(15)  Afridi, Maasar Lahore, Part 1, 95.

(16)  Interview with Dr Khawaja Muhammad Zikria, Dated 12.07. 2009.

(17) “Excavation: Excavation At Lahore Fort,” Pakistan Archaeology, Number I (Karachi: Published by The Department of Archeology, Ministry of Education, Government of Pakistan Karachi 1964), 55.

(18)  Afridi, Maasar Lahore, Part 1, 23.

(19) Khawaja Abdulhameed Yazdani, “Farsi Go Shuraa,” Naqoosh, Lahore Nama (Lahore: Idara-i-Farogh-i-Urdu 1962), 862.

(20) M. Siddiqi, “Abu'l-Faraj Runi,” Encyclopedia Iranica, I/3, pp. 283-284; an updated version is available online at http://www.iranicaonline.org/ articles/abul-faraj-b-2 (accessed on 31 January 2014).

(21)    Afridi, Maasar Lahore, Part 2, 106.

(22)    Ibid., 104.

(23)  “Tareekh e Roza tul Safa”, (Bombay: 1880), 72.

(24)   http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/masud-sad-salman (accessed on 1st June 2015)

(25)    Ibid., 104

(26)    Afridi, Maasar Lahore, Part 2, 121.-1900

(27)  Ibid., 125.

(28)  Ibid., 126.

(29)  Ibid., 128.

(30)  Ibid., 129.

(31)    Ibid., 162.

(32)    Ibid., 165.

(33)    Afridi, Maasar Lahore, Part 1, 171.