[5] According to a tradition recorded by Joseph Tiefenthaler in the 1700s, Shahabad occupied the site of a former village called Angadpur, after its founder Angad, the nephew of Rama.

[6] Modern Shahabad was founded in 1677 by one Nawab Diler Khan, a Pathan officer in the Mughal army, who had been sent to quell an uprising in Shahjahanpur.

[6] He built a brick palace at the centre of town, called the Bari Deorhi, which Tiefenthaler described upon his visit in 1770 as being "strengthened by towers like a fortress, with a vestibule and a covered colonnade.

[6] The mausoleum's upper story contains bands of florid decoration in red stone, a style common to architecture of that period which can also be seen in the complex surrounding the Taj Mahal in Agra.

[6] In 1824, Reginald Heber, Bishop of Calcutta, traveled to Shahabad and described it as a "considerable town or almost city with the remains of fortifications and many large houses.

"[7] The descendants of Nawab Diler Khan Daudzai also moved to a nearby area which under the zamindari and named this place as Wazirabad which is now known as village HARRAI, comes under Tehsil Shahbad, District Hardoi.