Jassa Singh Ahluwalia

Jassa Singh was born in 1718 at Ahlu near Lahore. His father died when he was four, and his mother took him to Delhi, where he was brought up in the household of Mata Sundari, the widow of Guru Gobind Singh. She sent him back to the Punjab with Nawab Kapur Singh, who raised him as a son.

In 1748, when the Khalsa was reorganised at Amritsar into the Dal Khalsa, Jassa Singh was made its supreme commander. For thirty-five years he led the Sikhs against the Mughals and the Afghans. At the Vadda Ghallughara in 1762, when Ahmad Shah Abdali's army caught the Sikh families near Kup, he is said to have been wounded twenty-two times while protecting the convoy.

In 1761 the Sikhs took Lahore, struck coins in the name of the Guru and proclaimed Jassa Singh Sultan-ul-Qaum, king of the nation. He founded the Ahluwalia misl, whose descendants ruled Kapurthala until 1947. He helped rebuild the Harmandir Sahib after the Afghans destroyed it. He died in 1783, and his samadhi stands near Gurdwara Baba Atal Rai in Amritsar.