[1] The tomb was commissioned by Humayun's first wife and chief consort, Empress Bega Begum under her patronage[2][3][4][5][6] in 1558, and designed by Mirak Mirza Ghiyas and his son, Sayyid Muhammad,[7] Persian architects chosen by her.

[8][9] It was the first garden-tomb on the Indian subcontinent,[10] and is located in Nizamuddin East, Delhi, close to the Dina-panah Citadel, also known as Purana Qila (Old Fort), that Humayun found in 1538.

[16][17] Modelled on Gur-e Amir, the tomb of his ancestor and Asia's conqueror Timur in Samarkand, it created a precedent for future Mughal architecture of royal mausolea, which reached its zenith with the Taj Mahal, at Agra.

[26] Bega Begum had been so grieved over her husband's death that she had thenceforth dedicated her life to a sole purpose: the construction of a memorial to him that would be the most magnificent mausoleum in the Empire, at a site near the Yamuna River in Delhi.

[27] According to Ain-i-Akbari, a 16th-century detailed document written during the reign of Akbar, Bega Begum supervised the construction of the tomb after returning from Mecca and undertaking the Hajj pilgrimage.

[28] According to Abd al-Qadir Bada'uni, one of the few contemporary historians to mention construction of the tomb, it was designed by the Persian architect Mirak Mirza Ghiyas (also referred to as Mirak Ghiyathuddin), who was selected by the Empress and brought from Herat (northwest Afghanistan); he had previously designed several buildings in Herat, Bukhara (now Uzbekistan), and others elsewhere in India.

[23][24] An English merchant, William Finch, who visited the tomb in 1611, describes rich interior furnishing of the central chamber (in comparison to the sparse look today).

He mentions the presence of rich carpets, as well as a shamiana, a small tent above the cenotaph, which was covered with a pure white sheet, and with copies of the Quran in front along with Humayun's sword, turban and shoes.

The capital had already shifted to Agra in 1556, and the decline of the Mughals accelerated the decay of the monument and its features, as the expensive upkeep of the garden proved impossible.

However, the capture of the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar during the Indian Rebellion of 1857 together with the premises, and his subsequent sentencing to exile, along with execution of his three sons, meant that the monument's worst days lay ahead, as the British took over Delhi completely.

In 1860, the Mughal design of the garden was replanted to a more English garden-style, with circular beds replacing the fours central water pools on the axial pathways and trees profusely planted in flowerbeds.

This fault was corrected in the early 20th century, when on Viceroy Lord Curzon's orders the original gardens were restored in a major restoration project between 1903 and 1909, which also included lining the plaster channels with sandstone; a 1915 planting scheme added emphasis to the central and diagonal axis by lining it with trees, though some trees were also planted on the platform originally reserved for tents.

[16] In 1882, the official curator of ancient monuments in India published his first report, which mentioned that the main garden was let out to various cultivators; amongst them till late were the royal descendants, who grew cabbage and tobacco in it.

These camps stayed open for about five years, and caused considerable damage not only to the extensive gardens, but also to the water channels and the principal structures.

This brought new interest to its restoration, and a detailed research and excavation process began under the aegis of the Aga Khan Trust and the ASI.

[31] The combination of red sandstone and white marble was previously seen in Delhi Sultanate period tombs and mosques, most distinctively in the highly decorative Alai Darwaza gatehouse in the Qutub complex, Mehrauli, built in 1311, under the Khalji dynasty.

The tomb, built of rubble masonry and red sandstone, uses white marble as a cladding material and also for the flooring, lattice screens (jaalis), door frames, eaves (chhajja), and the main dome.

The double or 'double-layered' dome, has an outer layer that supports the white marble exterior, while the inner part gives shape to the cavernous interior volume.

It can be entered through an imposing entrance iwan (high arc) on the south, which is slightly recessed, while other sides are covered with intricate jaalis, stone latticework.

The cenotaph is aligned on the north-south axis, as per Islamic tradition, wherein the head is placed to the north, while the face is turned sideways towards Mecca.

[31] The main chamber also carries the symbolic element, a mihrab design over the central marble lattice or jaali, facing Mecca in the West.

Aligned at the centre on the eastern wall lies a baradari, which is a building or room with twelve doors designed to allow the free draught of air through it.

It was built by Abdul Rahim Khan-I-Khana, son of Bairam Khan also a courtier in Mughal Emperor, Akbar's court, for his servant Miyan Fahim.

Yet further away from the tomb complex, lie Mughal-period monuments, Bada Bateshewala Mahal, the tomb of Muzaffar Husain Mirza, the grand nephew of Humayun, built 1603–04 on platform with five arches on each side, has its interior walls decorated with incised and painted plaster; the Chote Bateshewala Mahal once an arcaded octagonal building with a domed ceiling and stone jaalis.

[41] Another period structure is Barapula, a bridge with 12 piers and 11 arched openings, built in 1621 by Mihr Banu Agha, the chief eunuch of Jahangir's court.

[32] The tomb stands on a raised platform, reached by seven steps from the south, it has a square plan and consists of a single compartment covered with a double-dome.

At the main entrance of Humayun's Tomb, dingy stalls had been put up under a very corrupt system of municipal patronage known as tehbazari, and all sorts of heavy vehicles were allowed to be parked illegally in these open spaces.

In the next phase, similar treatment was given to the tomb's first chabutra (plinth), which was originally paved with large blocks of quartzite stone, some weighing over a 1,000 kg.

In the 1940s, an uneven settlement in the lower plinth had been corrected by covering it with a layer of concrete, adding to the disfigurement of the original Mughal flooring, which matched with that at the West Gate.

[52] Letitia Elizabeth Landon published the poetical illustration The Tomb of Humaioon, Delhi in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1833.