Rohtas Fort
UNESCO World Heritage Site (1997); Built By Sher Shah Suri From 1541, An Early Example Of Muslim Military Architecture In South Asia · Dina, Punjab
Rohtas Fort is a sixteenth-century garrison fortress built by the Afghan ruler Sher Shah Suri from 1541, after he had driven the Mughal emperor Humayun out of India, to hold the road north against his return and to control the Gakhar tribes of the Potohar. It is enormous: some four kilometres of massive stone walls with bastions and twelve gates wrap round a hill above a river gorge, and a whole village lives inside. The gates are the thing to see - the Sohail Gate, tall and ornate, the Kabuli Gate with its stepwell nearby, the Shishi Gate with its blue glazed tiles - and the walls can be walked in long sections for views over the Potohar plateau. There are few buildings inside: a small mosque and the Haveli Man Singh, added later by a Mughal general. Humayun did come back, and the fort was never besieged in earnest, which is partly why it survives so complete. It is a World Heritage Site that most people pass on the motorway without knowing, and on weekdays it is empty.
Rohtas village, near Dina, Jhelum District, Dina, Punjab, Pakistan
Open daily in daylight hours. There is a ticket at the main entrance, with a higher foreigners' rate; the village inside is lived in and the walls can be walked freely. Rohtas is a few kilometres off the Grand Trunk Road near Dina, about two hours by road from Islamabad and three to four from Lahore. The approach crosses a riverbed that can flood in the monsoon.