Construction of the tomb dates to either 1599, or 1615.

The tomb was said to be built by the Mughal Emperor Jehangir for his love, named in contemporary travel accounts as Anarkali, as per legend, was suspected by Emperor Akbar for relations with Jehangir, at the time known as Prince Saleem. There is no other historic proof of Anarakali’s existence than that of Jahangir’s contemporary western traveler’s accounts which could not be independently confirmed; the rest is some scholarly speculated hypothesis and/ or subsequent literary fictionalization of her character which often appears in movies, books and fictionalized versions of history.

During the time of the Sikh Empire, the tomb was occupied by Kharak Singh, and later was further desecrated by its conversion into the residence for the wife of General Jean-Baptiste Ventura, who was employed in the army of Ranjit Singh. The tomb was then converted during the British Raj into clerical offices in 1847 before repurposing the tomb into the Anglican St. James Church in 1851, and later regarded as Lahore’s “Protestant Cathedral.” In 1891, the church congregation was relocated, and the tomb was repurposed as the Punjab Record Office.

The occupant’s cenotaph was removed when the tomb was repurposed into a church. When the building no longer served as a church, the cenotaph was placed at the site of the former altar, and not at the original site of the cenotaph.