Some Aspects of Indo-Islamic Architecture

Written and reviewed by Subhra Gupta, Humanities faculty at UniDrill (M.A. Sociology, University of Delhi · 7 years teaching Humanities). Based on NCERT Fine Arts Class XI (An Introduction to Indian Art Part I), Chapter 8.

Why does one building carry an arch, a lotus and a verse?

Look closely at a medieval gateway in India and you may find a pointed arch, a lotus bud fringe along its curve, a carved bracket and a band of calligraphy, all in one frame. Nobody planned it as a clash. It is what happens when builders, patrons and craftspeople from different regions work side by side for centuries. This chapter is about that meeting of techniques, called Indo-Islamic architecture, and about the buildings it produced: tombs and mosques, forts and towers, sarais and gardens. CUET tests it as a mix of vocabulary, sites and a few famous monuments.

How it began

Islam spread towards Spain and India in the seventh and eighth centuries CE. It came to India with merchants, traders, holy men and conquerors over about six hundred years. Muslims began to construct in Sind and Gujarat by the eighth century, but large scale building began only in the early thirteenth century under the Delhi Sultanate, set up after the Turkish conquest of northern India.

By the twelfth century India already had monumental building. The common technique was trabeation, using brackets, pillars and lintels to carry a flat roof or a small shallow dome. Arches existed in wood and stone, but could not bear the weight of the structure above. The new element was archuate construction, in which arches were built to carry the load of domes. Such arches need voussoirs (interlocking blocks) and keystones. Domes resting on pendentives and squinches could span large spaces and leave the interior free of pillars.

Builders absorbed local features and combined them with their own practices. This blend of structural techniques, shapes and surface decoration is called Indo-Saracenic or Indo-Islamic architecture.

Two views. For the exam: the blend of local and imported architecture is called Indo-Islamic, and the chapter also gives Indo-Saracenic as an alternative name. Another reading: writers on architecture more often use Indo-Saracenic for the nineteenth century colonial style that borrowed forms from earlier buildings, and prefer Indo-Islamic for the medieval tradition. In an answer, use Indo-Islamic and mention Indo-Saracenic only when asked for another name.

Religious practice shaped the decoration. Hindu temples are covered with sculpture and painting of the divine in many forms. In Islamic religious buildings, living forms are not shown on sacred surfaces, so the art of decoration developed through arabesque, geometric patterns and calligraphy on plaster and stone.

Who built, and with what

Buildings were put up by the wealthy, in descending order: rulers, nobles and their families, merchants, merchant guilds, the rural elite and devotees of a cult. Persian, Turkish and Saracenic influences were obvious, but Indo-Islamic buildings were also heavily shaped by Indian architectural and decorative traditions. Much depended on available material, resources, skills and the taste of the patron.

Walls were thick, made mostly of easily available rubble masonry and covered with chunam (lime plaster) or dressed stone. Builders used quartzite, sandstone, buff stone, marble and polychrome tiles. From the early seventeenth century brick was also used, giving greater flexibility, and there was more reliance on local materials.

Four style groups

Scholars group Indo-Islamic architecture into four categories. They are tools to help understand differences, not fixed boxes.

Among the provincial styles, Bengal and Jaunpur are regarded as distinct. Gujarat's was markedly regional, because patrons borrowed from temple traditions: toranas, lintels in mihrabs, bell and chain motifs and carved panels of trees for tombs, mosques and dargahs. The white marble dargah of Shaikh Ahmad Khattu at Sarkhej, of the fifteenth century, is a good provincial example and heavily influenced the form and decoration of Mughal tombs.

Types of buildings

Religious and secular needs produced many types: mosques for daily prayer, Jama Masjids, tombs, dargahs, minars, hammams, formally laid out gardens, madrasas, sarais or caravansarais and Kos minars. These were additions to the existing types of buildings in the subcontinent.

The decorative vocabulary

Arches could be plain and squat or high and pointed. From the sixteenth century they were designed with trefoil or multiple foliations, and spandrels were decorated with medallions or bosses.

Forts: power on a hill

Monumental forts with battlements were a regular feature of medieval times and symbolised the seat of power. If a fort was captured, the defeated ruler lost his power or his sovereignty, since he had to accept the overlordship of the victor. Famous examples are Chittor, Gwalior, Daulatabad (earlier Devgiri) and Golconda. Heights gave a good view, security, space for residential and official complexes and a sense of awe. Palace complexes within forts freely absorbed stylistic and decorative influences from many sources.

Minars

The minar is a tower, a form of the stambha, common in the subcontinent. Its everyday use was the call to prayer (azaan), while its great height also symbolised the ruler's power. Two striking medieval minars are the Qutub Minar in Delhi and the Chand Minar at Daulatabad.

The Qutub Minar is also associated with the revered saint of Delhi, Khwaja Qutbuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki.

Tombs and gardens

Monumental tombs over graves of rulers and the royal family were a popular feature. Examples are the tombs of Ghiyasuddin Tughlaq, Humayun and Abdur Rahim Khan-i-Khanan in Delhi, and of Akbar and Itmaduddaula in Agra. The tomb came to be placed in a paradise like setting, a garden or beside water or both, as at Humayun's tomb and the Taj Mahal, which follow the charbagh plan.

Two views. For the exam: following Anthony Welch's reading, the idea behind the tomb was eternal paradise as a reward for the true believer on the Day of Judgement, hence garden imagery and Quranic verses on the walls. Another reading: such vast, ordered spaces could not have been meant only for peace and happiness in the next world. They also displayed the majesty, grandeur and might of the person buried. Both ideas can sit together in one answer.

Pause and predict: a medieval gateway has a pointed arch, a lotus bud fringe along its curve and a band of Quranic calligraphy. Which tradition does each element come from?

Check your answer: The arch is part of the archuate construction brought in during this period, the lotus bud fringe is a decorative form taken from the local setting, and the calligraphy belongs to the Islamic decorative art of arabesque, geometry and writing. One frame, three sources, which is the meaning of Indo-Islamic.

Sarais and buildings for ordinary people

Sarais ringed cities and dotted the countryside. They were built on a simple square or rectangular plan to give temporary shelter to Indian and foreign travellers, pilgrims, merchants and traders. They were public places crowded with people of many backgrounds, so they led to cross cultural interaction and blending in everyday life. Non royal society also built homes, temples, mosques, khanqahs (hermitages of Sufi saints), dargahs, commemorative gateways, pavilions in buildings and gardens, and bazaars, again mixing styles, techniques and decoration.

The Jama Masjid

A Jama Masjid is the large congregational mosque, where Friday afternoon prayers need the presence of at least forty adult Muslim men. At the time of prayers the khutba was read in the name of the ruler, and the ruler's laws for the realm were also read out. A medieval city usually had one Jama Masjid. A typical plan has a large open courtyard (sahn) with cloisters on three sides and the Qibla Liwan on the west. In it stand the mihrab, which shows the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca and which worshippers face, and the mimbar for the Imam.

Beyond the textbook. For the exam: a Jama Masjid is the Friday congregational mosque. In reality: because commercial and cultural exchange gathered around it, the mosque and its surroundings became the focus of life for both Muslims and non Muslims. Why it matters: it explains why the Jama Masjid is treated in this chapter as a civic space as well as a religious one.

Mandu: building for the climate

Mandu stands over 2000 feet above sea level, about sixty miles from Indore, overlooking the Malwa Plateau to the north and the Narmada valley to the south. The natural defence encouraged continuous settlement by Parmara Rajputs, Afghans and Mughals. It became famous as the capital of the Ghauri dynasty (1401–1561), founded by Hoshang Shah, and is also linked with the romance of Sultan Baz Bahadur and Rani Rupmati. The Mughals went there for pleasure in the monsoon.

Mandu is a typical provincial style centre and a fine example of adapting to the environment: arched pavilions, light and airy, so that buildings did not hold heat, with local stone and marble.

Mandu's architecture is regarded as so close to that of imperial Delhi that it does not make a bold statement of local tradition. Even so, its austere buildings with jalis and carved brackets, and their lightness, were an important contribution to the Indo-Islamic story.

The Taj Mahal

The Taj Mahal was built at Agra by Shah Jahan as a mausoleum for his wife Mumtaz Mahal. From 1632 it took nearly twenty years and 20,000 skilled workers. It is described as the high point of the long evolution of medieval Indian architecture. Its power comes from its orderly and simple plan, perfect proportions, the quality of marble, the setting of garden and river and the clean outline of the tomb against the sky.

You enter through a monumental red sandstone gateway, whose arch frames the mausoleum. The tomb is laid out in a charbagh crossed by paths and water channels with pools and fountains. It sits on the northern end of the garden rather than the middle, to use the river bank. At the terrace corners stand four tapering minarets, 132 feet high. A drum and dome with four cupolas form the skyline. A red sandstone mosque lies to the west and a similar building to the east, for balance. The white marble came from the Makrana mines in Rajasthan, set against the red sandstone around it.

Pause and predict: a student says the Taj Mahal stands in the exact centre of its garden. Is that right?

Check your answer: No. The tomb is placed at the northern end of the charbagh so that it is next to the river bank.

Gol Gumbad, Bijapur

Gol Gumbad is in Bijapur, Karnataka. It is the mausoleum of Muhammad Adil Shah (1626–1656), the seventh Sultan of the Adil Shahi dynasty of Bijapur (1489–1686). The ruler built it himself, and it is striking despite being unfinished. The complex includes a gateway, a Naqqar Khana, a mosque and a sarai in a walled garden.

The tomb is a monumental square building with a circular drum, on which a great dome rests, hence the name. It is made of dark grey basalt with decorated plasterwork. Each wall is 135 feet long, 110 feet high and 10 feet thick, and the building rises over 200 feet with drum and dome. The dome has a diameter of 125 feet and covers an uninterrupted floor space of 18,337 square feet, the second largest in the world. The single square chamber holds the cenotaphs, while the real graves lie in a vault below, reached by stairs.

The hemispherical dome on a square base is carried on pendentives, which shape the dome and pass its weight to the walls below. New vaulting with arch nets and stellate forms in squinches covers the angles formed by intersecting arches. Along the drum is a whispering gallery where sounds are magnified and echoed many times. At the four corners are seven storeyed octagonal towers with staircases to the dome, and the facade has a heavy bracketed cornice on corbels. The structure suggests Timurid and Persian styles, but it is made of local material and has surface decoration popular in the Deccan. Its corner towers recall turrets at the Qila-i Kuhna Masjid and the Purana Qila in Delhi.

Beyond the textbook. For the exam: Gol Gumbad's dome covers the second largest uninterrupted floor space in the world. In reality: the idea of a building as a convergence of styles is as important as the size. Timurid and Persian structural ideas, Deccani surface ornament and Delhi inspired corner turrets sit together on one plan. Why it matters: a style question on Gol Gumbad is usually about this mix.

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Where this chapter connects

• Previous: Indian Bronze Sculpture is the last of the sculpture chapters before this unit on medieval buildings.
• Earlier link: Temple Architecture and Sculpture covers the Hindu, Buddhist and Jain temples whose forms, such as toranas and brackets, appear in the provincial mosques and tombs here.
• Class XII link: The Mughal School of Miniature Painting and The Deccani Schools of Painting show the same courts, Delhi and Agra on one side and Bijapur and Golconda on the other, as patrons of painting.