MEWATIS UNDER THE MAMLUK DYNASTY

The establishment of the Sultanate and its capital at Mehrauli (South Delhi), which was one of the most important cities of that time, affected the Meos, being seen by them as the appropriation of Meo land. Not surprisingly, their raids were incursions into the new capital, affecting traders, pilgrims, and the water carriers at the city's  major sources of water. The concentration of Meo Settlements when they forge their presence onto the pages of history in the mid-thirteenth century is in the region South of the capital called Mewat. Mewat derives its name from the ferocious Mewati.1 In the mid-thirteenth century they inhabited settlements around the periphery of Delhi, in the Siwalik hills (in the contemporary state of Haryana), Bayana, and in the Kohpaya.2 The Kohpaya includes Bharatpur, Dholpur, and a part of Jaipur and Alwar that Stretches up to Ranthambhor.3 This became the heartland of Meo resistance against the Sultans of Delhi.