Murud-Janjira is the local name for a fort situated on an island just off the coastal village of Murud, in the Raigad district of Maharashtra, India.
It was occupied by the Siddis and is famous for being the only fort along India’s Western coast that remained undefeated despite Dutch, Maratha and English East India Company attacks.
The word Janjira is not native to India, and may have originated after the Arabic word Jazeera, which means an island. Murud was once known in Marathi as Habsan (“of Habshi” or Abyssinian). Some of the people also split the name as “Jal Jeera” meaning fort in the water. The name of the fort is a concatenation of the Konkani and Arabic words for Island, “morod” and “jazeera”. The word “morod” is peculiar to Konkani and is absent in Marathi. Janjira is considered one of the strongest marine forts in India.
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