Indo-Islamic architecture
Despite an initial Arab presence in Sindh, the development of Indo-Islamic architecture began in earnest with the establishment of Delhi as the capital of the Ghurid dynasty in 1193.
[2] The types and forms of large buildings required by Muslim elites, with mosques and tombs much the most common, were very different from those previously built in India.
Both types of building essentially consist of a single large space under a high dome, and completely avoid the figurative sculpture so important to Hindu temple architecture.
Following the collapse of the Mughal Empire, regional nawabs such as in Lucknow, Hyderabad and Mysore continued to commission and patronize the construction of Mughal-style architecture in the princely states.
[5] The start of the Delhi Sultanate in 1206 under Qutb ud-Din Aibak introduced a large Islamic state to India, using Central Asian styles.
Like other early Islamic buildings it re-used elements such as columns from destroyed Hindu and Jain temples, including one on the same site whose platform was reused.
[8] The surfaces of both are elaborately decorated with inscriptions and geometric patterns; in Delhi the shaft is fluted with "superb stalactite bracketing under the balconies" at the top of each stage.
[10] The Tomb of Iltutmish was added by 1236; its dome, the squinches again corbelled, is now missing, and the intricate carving has been described as having an "angular harshness", from carvers working in an unfamiliar tradition.
Another very early mosque, begun in the 1190s, is the Adhai Din Ka Jhonpra in Ajmer, Rajasthan, built for the same Delhi rulers, again with corbelled arches and domes.
Both mosques had large detached screens with pointed corbelled arches added in front of them, probably under Iltutmish a couple of decades later.
[13] The Alai Darwaza gatehouse at the Qutb complex, from 1311, still shows a cautious approach to the new technology, with very thick walls and a shallow dome, only visible from a certain distance or height.
Bold contrasting colours of masonry, with red sandstone and white marble, introduce what was to become a common feature of Indo-Islamic architecture, substituting for the polychrome tiles used in Persia and Central Asia.
[14] The tomb of Shah Rukn-e-Alam (built 1320 to 1324) in Multan, Pakistan is a large octagonal brick-built mausoleum with polychrome glazed decoration that remains much closer to the styles of Iran and Afghanistan.
The tomb of the founder of the dynasty, Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq (d. 1325) is more austere, but impressive; like a Hindu temple, it is topped with a small amalaka and a round finial like a kalasha.
Unlike the buildings mentioned previously, it completely lacks carved texts, and sits in a compound with high walls and battlements.
[18] He was buried in the large Hauz Khas Complex in Delhi, with many other buildings from his period and the later Sultanate, including several small domed pavilions supported only by columns.
The large interior has a central hypostyle space, and wide aisles with "transverse" arches springing from unusually low down (illustrated).
The ruined Adina Mosque (1374–75) is very large, which is unusual in Bengal, with a barrel vaulted central hall flanked by hypostyle areas.
[37] After the Islamic consolidation of Bengal was complete, some local features continued, especially in smaller buildings, but the Mughals used their usual style in imperial commissions.
Some designs push out balconies at intervals up the shaft; the most extreme version of this was in the lost upper parts of the so-called "shaking minarets" at the Jama Mosque, Ahmedabad,[40] which fell down in an earthquake in 1819.
The Champaner-Pavagadh Archaeological Park, the 16th century capital of Gujarat Sultanate, documents the early Islamic and pre-Mughal city that has remained without any change.
Both have stone-built cores with elaborately carved wooden exterior galleries, at Amburiq on two levels, in an adaptation of traditional local styles.
The Shahjahan Mosque at Thatta, Sindh was built under, and probably largely by Shah Jahan, but strongly reflects Central Asian Islamic style, as the emperor had recently been campaigning near Samarkand.
[citation needed] Later Mughal architecture, built under Aurangzeb (ruled 1658–1707), include the Badshahi Mosque in Lahore and Bibi ka Maqbara in Aurangabad.
However, by this time versions of Mughal style, often called "post-Mughal", had been widely adopted by the rulers of the princely states and other wealthy people of all religions for their palaces and, where appropriate, tombs.
The main ideas and themes of garden tombs had already been explored by earlier Mughal emperors, and this was the culmination of all those previous works into a national landmark.
The so-called Indo-Saracenic architecture, beginning in the late 18th century, but mainly developing from the 1840s until independence a century later, was mostly designed by British or other European architects, and adopted Islamic or specifically Indian features, usually as a decorative skin on buildings whose essential forms reflected contemporary Western types and uses, whether as office buildings, palaces, courts of justice, railway stations or hotels.
