History of Indo-Islamic architecture

Indo-Islamic architecture refers to the Islamic architecture of the Indian subcontinent , especially in the area of today’s states of India , Pakistan and Bangladesh . Although Islam had already gained a foothold on the west coast and in the extreme northwest of the subcontinent in the early Middle Ages, the actual phase of Indo-Islamic construction began with the subjugation of the North Indian Gangster level by the Ghurids in the late 12th century. It has its origins in the religious architecture of Muslim Persia , which brought numerous stylistic and structural innovations with it, but shows from the beginning Indian influence in stone processing and construction technology. In the early modern period, Persian and Hindu Hindu elements finally merged into an autonomous architectural unity that was clearly distinguishable from the styles of extra-Indian Islam. With the decline of the Muslim empires and the rise of the British undisputed supremacy on the subcontinent in the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the development of Indo-Islamic architecture stopped. Individual architectural elements found their way into the eclectic colonial style of British India , sometimes also into the modern Islamic architecture of the states of South Asia.

The main styles in northern India are the styles of the Sultanate of Delhi from the late 12th century, influenced by the ruling dynasty, and the style of the Mughal Empire from the mid-16th century. Parallel to this, various regional styles developed in smaller Islamic empires, especially the Dekkan , which had gained their independence from one of the two northern Indian empires in the 14th century. Common to all styles is a concept largely based on Persian and Central Asian models and an indefinitely indefinitely, depending on the epoch and region, of the décor and building technology.

An overview of the entire architectural history of India can be found in the article ” Indian Architecture “. Important technical terms are briefly explained in the glossary of Indian architecture .

Mosque
The daily prayer ( salat ) is one of the “five pillars” of Islam. At least once a week, on Friday, prayer is to be performed in the community. For this purpose, the mosque ( Arabic Masjid ) serves as the most important form of Islamic architecture, which, in contrast to the Hindu temple neither a cosmological-mythological symbol function takes over nor represents the seat of a deity. However, there are no fixed rules in the Qur’an for the construction of a sacred building, only the figurative representation of God or of people is expressly forbidden. Early mosques were therefore oriented toward the construction of the Prophet Muhammad’s house with an open court ( sahn ) and a covered prayer room ( haram ). In the wall of the prayer room is a niche ( mihrab ), which indicates the direction of prayer ( Qibla ) to Mecca . Next to it is usually the minbar , a pulpit from which the preacher speaks to the assembled faithful. Another feature was the minaret ( minar ), a tower from which the muezzin calls the faithful to prayer. As a borrowing from the Christian church, it first appeared in Syria in the 8th century. In addition to its function as a prayer center, the mosque also fulfills social purposes. Often therefore include a school ( madrasa ), meeting rooms and other facilities to the complex of a mosque.

Beginnings
The first Arab-built mosque on the Indian subcontinent in Banbhore ( Sindh , Pakistan), dating back to 727, has been preserved as a ruin. Its square structure is divided into a rectangular courtyard surrounded by colonnades and a rectangular pillared hall. Many of the features characteristic of later mosque buildings are still missing, which had to be taken over from other architectures as a consequence of the low level of knowledge of Arab architecture. The minaret is still missing in Banbhore. The presence of a mihrab in Banbhore does not indicate anything.

For centuries, the Sindh was on the eastern periphery of Islamic empires, first the All-Islamic caliphates of the Umayyads and Abbasids and finally the Samanid Empire. Unlike in Persia and Central Asia , no significant regional architectural tradition has developed. Also in Punjab , from the early 11th century part of the Ghaznawidischen Empire, only fragmentary evidence of an architecture inspired by Samanid models have survived. Features are the dome , but only much later became a full-fledged component of Indian-Islamic architecture, and the Kielbogen. In addition to the brick bricks used in Persia, spolia from destroyed Hindu sanctuaries, which Mahmud of Ghazni had brought from northwest India to Afghanistan, were also used as building material.

Sultanate of Delhi
Until the 12th century, Islamic architecture as an offshoot of Middle Eastern Persian architecture remained a marginal phenomenon on the Indian subcontinent. Only with the conquest of the North Indian Gangetic plain by the Ghurids from 1192 did the real era of Indo-Islamic architecture begin. According to the feudal structure of the Sultanate of Delhi, which emerged from the Ghurid Empire, the architectural styles are closely connected with the ruling dynasty. In the early sultanate period prevailed the slave (1206-1290) and the Khilji dynasty (1290-1320). Under the Tughluq dynasty (1320-1413), the sultanate first experienced its greatest expansion, but was significantly weakened in 1398 by a Mongol invasion. In the late period reigned the Sayyid dynasty (1414-1451) and the Lodi dynasty (1451-1526). After the removal of the sultanate by the Mughals in 1526, the Surids were able to temporarily restore the empire between 1540 and 1555.

Early Sultanate style under the slave and Khilji dynasty
Among the sultans of the slave dynasty (1206 to 1290), spoliae of destroyed Hindu and Jain temples were used in mosque construction on a large scale. Nevertheless, the Islamic conquerors left Hindu master builders to carry out their construction projects, as Indian stonemasons had much more experience in dealing with domestic stone than building materials than the architects of their homeland who were used to brick buildings. Although all figurative decoration on the spolia used was removed and replaced by abstract patterns or verses from the Koran, the detailing of the façade decor of the mosques, as it is unknown to contemporary Near Eastern buildings, shows from the beginning unmistakable Indian influence.

Like many early Indian mosques, the Quwwat al-Islam mosque, begun in the late 12th century in Delhi (northern India), the principal architectural work of the slave dynasty, was built on the site of a devastated Hindu or Jain sacred building. In the oldest part, it has a rectangular courtyard, which originally originated from the enlarged temple district. Mandapa pillars were used for the colonnade surrounding the courtyard. In contrast, the adjoining the prayer hall to the west of the courtyard as a façade was subsequently built a high arcade wall ( maqsurah ), whose pointed and keel arches are clearly modeled after Middle Eastern models, but were still implemented in traditional Indian Kragbauweise . The middle arch, which is higher and wider than the rest, acts as a portal. The conical ascending minaret Qutb Minar , which was also designed as a sign of Islam’s victory over the “pagan” Indians, dates largely from the first half of the 13th century. Its circular layout loosens ribs in the form of prongs of a star or circle segments, a stylistic element familiar from older towers of Persian tombs. The Quwwat al-Islam Mosque was expanded in the 13th and 14th centuries by adding two larger rectangular courtyards and other arched curtain walls.

Even outside Delhi, the early Indo-Islamic style of the slave dynasty flourished. An outstanding example is the Adhai din ka Jhonpra Mosque in Ajmer (Rajasthan, northwest India). Built around 1200 with the inclusion of a Jain Mandapa as a court mosque with columnar entrances from temple poles , it also received a pierced with pointed arch Maqsurah . The support squares of the corridors span Indian flat, lantern and ring course ceilings. The domes over the hall, as well as the arcade arches, still in Kragbauweise. Only in the second half of the 13th century, in the late period of the slave dynasty, did real arches with radially arranged stones prevail.

Tughluq style and provincial style

Under the Tughluq dynasty (1321-1413), which was able to extend the area of power of the Delhi Sultanate temporarily to the south and east of India, all buildings took on stricter, fortress-like features. Significant mosques were built especially in the reign of Firuz Shah . The style of the Tughluq period is represented by the Begumpur Mosque in Delhi. With its rectangular, arcaded courtyard it is structurally associated with the typical Indo-Islamic court mosque. On the west side of the Mecca facing Maqsurah designed as an arcade , the middle arch of a prominent, dominant portal ( Pishtaq), which rises so high that the dome behind it remains invisible. The bow of the Pishtaq has a deep reveal , creating a far back arched niche ( Ivan or Liwan ). A much smaller arch on the back wall of the Ivan forms the actual portal. Herein influences of the Central Asian architecture become clear. On both sides of the Pishtaq are two minarets, which run like their predecessors conical. The pointed arches of the Hofarkaden are flatter than the previously used pointed and Kielbogens; they resemble the Tudor arches of European architecture. The Khirki Mosquein Delhi, however, breaks with the traditional construction of the courtyard mosque, as it is divided into four covered parts of the building, each of which has its own yard. Its citadel-like appearance is due to the massive corner towers, the high substructure and the largely bare stone walls, which were originally plastered. Hindu-influenced decorative elements disappeared almost completely during the Tughluq era. However, certain structural structures such as cave-like narrow interior spaces, horizontal falls , consoles and tile-structured ceiling structures reveal that Hindu craftsmen continued to be involved in construction work.

While the representative architecture in Delhi temporarily came to a standstill after the conquest and plunder of the city by the Mongolian conqueror Timur in 1398, the mosque style in Jaunpur (Uttar Pradesh, northern India), given by the Begumpur Mosque , became a monumental sequel. The resulting at the beginning of the 15th century Atala mosque and the larger, built around 1470 Friday Mosque (Jama Masjid) have a particularly high that Maqsurah to more than double superior pishtaqmarked with slightly flared walls. He completely obscures the dome behind. Arches break through the multi-storey back wall of Ivan . The cantilever brackets of the flat-roofed courtyard arcades and the plastic façade decorations suggest Hindu influences.

Lodi style
As a result of the temporary resurgence of the Delhi Sultanate under the Lodi dynasty (1451-1526), mosque construction in the heartland revived with some innovations. The previously flat domes were now increased by Tambours and thus more emphasized. Archivolts were to lighten the flat surface of the Maqsurah . Significant for the further development of Indo-Islamic architecture was also the change in the shape of the minaret, which was initially tapered as in the Tughluq era, but then slimmed to a cylinder. One of the major works of Lodi-style mosque construction is the Moth Ki Mosque in Delhi.

Mughal Empire
The Mughals, who ruled over northern India from 1526, later also over central and parts of southern India, incorporated the Persian-influenced culture of their Central Asian homeland into the mosque architecture. At the same time, they incorporated non-Islamic elements on an unprecedented scale. The first major mosque construction of the Mughal period is the Friday Mosque in the temporary capital Fatehpur Sikri (Uttar Pradesh, North India), which 1571 to 1574 under the considered particularly tolerant ruler Akbarwas built. On the one hand it illustrates the original type of the mosque in the mogul style and on the other hand the symbiosis of Indian, Persian and Central Asian building elements during the Mughal era. Although it is a court mosque, unlike earlier buildings, the Bethalle and its open courtyard are no longer an architectural unit. Rather, the qibla wall to the west extends beyond the rectangular floor plan. The Bethalle itself is divided into three sections each covered by a dome, with the central dome overhanging the other two. Each dome includes a lotus flower-like stucco top and a stucco top . A typical Timurid pishtaq with a particularly deep recedingIvan dominates the façade and hides the middle dome. Later Mughal mosquesrepeatedlyattacked the three-domed building with dominant pishtaq . Characteristic for the entire Mogul style are the small, ornamented pavilions ( chhatris ), which were taken over as innovation from the seculararchitecture ofthe Hindu Rajputs in the Indo-Islamic architecture and go back to the umbrella-like crowning of Buddhist cult buildings of the classical period. In the Friday mosque of Fatehpur Sikri they decorate the pishtaq and the Konsoldächer the pointed-arched Hofarkaden. Two subsequently added, different sized Torbauten ( darwaza ) of Persian style grant entrance to the courtyard from east and south.

The last highlight of the Mughal mosque is the 1644 completed Badshahi Mosque in Lahore ( Punjab , Pakistan) dar. It has four minarets at the main building and four more at the corner points of the court, but otherwise closely follows the construction concept of the Friday Mosque of Delhi Thus, in the second half of the seventeenth century, during the reign of Aurangzeb , the decay of clear lines in favor of expansive, frivolous shapes began to elude. Already at the 1660 completed bead mosque of Delhi, the domes appear bulbous and oversized the tops in comparison to the delicate building. Nevertheless, the late-Mughal mosque style was continued into the 19th century for want of new, innovative solutions. Examples include the Asafi Mosque from the late 18th century in Lakhnau (Uttar Pradesh) with ornamental balustrade on the Bethalle and greatly enlarged dome spikes and the 1878 started, but only completed in 1971 Taj -ul Mosque in Bhopal ( Madhya Pradesh , Central India) with particularly high and massive minarets.

Dekkan
At the Dekkan, the Bahamians of the Delhi Sultanate dissolved around the middle of the 14th century and established their own empire. Internal disputes led to the decline of central power and the emergence of the five Dekkan sultanates in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. The strongest of the five sultanates, Bijapur and Golkonda , were able to maintain their independence until their conquest by the Mughal Empire in 1686 and 1687, respectively. The early, strongly Persian architecture of the ShiiteStates of the Dekkan is simple and appropriate. From the 16th century, the increasing influence of the local Hindu building tradition turned to softer features and playful decor, without supplanting the basic Persian character.

The architecture of the 16th and 17th century Deccan Sultanates has a strong Safavid (Persian) character, but has occasionally been enriched with Hindu building techniques such as the lintel (instead of the Islamic arch) and cantilever roof with chajja . The Shiite Dekan sultans left a Hindu-inspired design idiom in the rather sober decoration , in contrast to the Sunni people who were ruling North India at the same timeMughals, but not too. The mature mosque style of the Dekkan Sultanate is characterized by almost domed domes and the repetition of the main dome in miniature as tower tower, for example at the mosque in the mausoleum complex for Sultan Ibrahim II in Bijapur (Karnataka).

Gujarat
A deep mixture of Islamic and Hindu-Jain features characterizes the architecture of West Indian Gujarat , an independent sultanate from the 14th to the 16th century. The Gujarati mosques correspond in plan to the type of court mosque. In the construction and the individual design, however, unmistakable Hindu -Jainist temple buildings have worked on the mosque. In column constructions, Islamic arches and vaults are often found next to console-based architraves . Columns, portals and minarets are finely subdivided and decorated by Hindu-Jainist influence. From the West Indian profane architecture, the stone tracery that occurs mainly in windows and balustrades (Jali ) and the console-supported, covered balcony ( Jharokha ), which was used on facades. The jewelry motifs are borrowed in part from non-Islamic art, as the planttendrilsin the Jali windows of the Sidi Saiyyed Mosque in Ahmedabad. Many mosques include Mandapa columnar halls with cantilever roofs, such as the Ahmedabad Friday Mosque, completed in 1424, which is one of the most outstanding Gujarati monuments. Their Maqsurah connects the Islamic arcade with Hindu stone carvings, which are especially true of the minarets, as in the TimuridMosques of Central Asia flank the Pishtaq on both sides, to which Shikhara’s Gujarati Hindu temples echo.

While the architectural elements in Ahmedabad’s mosques, taken in and out of themselves, are combined in a contrasting but harmonious whole, the 1450 Friday Mosque of Champaner reveals a particularly peculiar mixture of styles. Its layout has exactly the proportions of Persian court mosques adopted, but resembles a Jain temple in the elevation with an open pillar hall, flat Kragkuppeln and three-storey raised nave. The large-scale Maqsurah of the Bethalle ties with its arcades more closely to the Islamic formal language, but acts as one of the subsequently added facades of the early Islamic era in India.

Bengal
Bengal , which had been Islamized relatively late, retired in 1338 as the first province from the Imperial Association of the Delhi Sultanate. It was less influenced than other regions by the architecture of Delhi, so that in the long period of independence to the conquest by the Mughals in 1576 could develop a strongly influenced by local traditions regional style. Since Bengal is poor in stone deposits, fired bricks were the main building material. In the 13th and early 14th centuries, first temple poles were used to build mosques based on the early Sultanate style and the Tughluq style. The Great Adina Mosque of 1374 in Pandua ( West Bengal, East India) still corresponds to the type of the Indian court mosque. Later mosques in Pandua and Gaur (Indian- Bangladesh border), however, are much smaller, compact buildings without courtyard. In adaptation to the particularly rainy summer they are completely covered. Depending on the size of the mosque, one or more domes rest on convex curved roofs. The curvilinear form of the roof derives from the typical, village-like mud houses, which traditionally have palm-leaf-covered roof constructions made of curved bamboo sticks. In the decor, Hindu-inspired patterns replaced the ornamental forms of the Delhi Sultanate. The façade cladding often used colored glazed terracotta panels. The highlight of the Bengali mosque style is the Chhota Sona Mosque in the Bangladeshi part of Gaur. Built at the turn of the 16th century on a rectangular ground plan, it has five ships with jagged portals and three over-coupled yokes .

Cashmere
The north Indian mountain landscape Kashmircame under Islamic rule in the first half of the 14th century, but was never part of the Sultanate of Delhi. The architectural development was therefore largely unaffected by the architecture of Delhi. Kashmir’s independence as a sultanate ended in 1586 with submission to the Mughal Empire. Nowhere else in the Indian subcontinent has Islamic architecture been so strongly influenced by indigenous traditions as in Kashmir. Many mosques are hardly recognizable as such because they were built on the model of Hindu temples of the region as compact cube buildings, more rarely as complexes of several such cube buildings, of wood and brick. Its pier-supported, mostly curved roofs, as well as in Kashmiri houses, are far above and have a tall, slender tower structure,which is modeled after the pyramid-shaped temple towers of Kashmir. The tips of the tower structures are sometimes designed as umbrella-like crowns, which in turn on theChhattras of the ancient Indian Buddhist stupas can be traced. Larger mosques further comprise an open cubic pavilion ( Mazina ) with steep turrets, which takes over the function of a minaret. In the decor, local carvings and inlays alternate with painted wall tiles of Persian origin. A typical example of the Kashmiri mosque style is the Shah Hamadan Mosque built in 1400 in Srinagar ( Jammu and Kashmir, North India). Kashmiri tombs hardly differ from the mosques. Only during the Mughal period did typical features of Indo-Islamic architecture appear. The Friday Mosque of Srinagar, which largely originates in its present form in the 17th century, has kielbogige Ivane and Pishtaqs which enclose a courtyard. The pagoda-like tower structures of the Pishtaqs , however, correspond to the customary national style.

Tomb
Unlike Hindus, Muslims do not burn their dead but bury them. While the graves of ordinary people were usually unadorned and anonymous, influential personalities such as rulers, ministers or saints often received monumental grave monuments during their lifetime. The location of the underground stone burial chamber ( qabr ) marks a cenotaph ( zarih ) in the aboveground part ( huzrah ) of the tomb. Since the deceased’s face must always point towards Mecca ( qibla ), Indo-Islamic mausoleums also contain the mihrab facing west . Graves of important saints often became pilgrimage centers.

Smaller mausoleums were often executed as a so-called canopy tomb in the style of a Hindu-Jain pavilion. For this purpose, a pillared roof with a hemispherical or slightly conical cantilever dome was erected above the cenotaph. Such canopy tombs can be found in large numbers on the burial grounds in the Pakistani landscape Sindh, including in Chaukhandi , and in the northwest Indian state of Rajasthan . Larger tombs were built incorporating Persian features in masonry. The result was outstanding buildings, some of which are among the most important architectural monuments of India.

Sultanate of Delhi
At the beginning of the development of the Indo-Islamic mausoleum is the tomb of Sultan Iltutmish , built around 1236 in Delhi (northern India). The cenotaph is located here in the middle of a massive, cube-shaped space whose square plan was transformed into an octagon by kielbogen-shaped trumpets. The trumpets support Architrave as the basis of a no longer preserved, only to be recognized in Kranzkuppel. As with the early mosques, the rich plastic decoration of the tomb is due to the dependence of Muslim builders on Hindu stonemasons. However, if the first mosques were still completely made up of temple poles, then freshly broken stone was probably used for the grave of the Iltutmish. Above the tomb Balban (1280) for the first time a real vault, which is, however, also can be seen only in the neck rose.

In Delhi, too, the octagonal floor plan prevailed in the second half of the 14th century, as can be seen in the tomb of Minister Khan-i-Jahan from the time of Firuz Shah . This may be because the octagon approaching the circle, as the foundation of the substructure, provides better static properties in the construction of a dome than the square, which requires more complicated trumpet solutions. Under the Sayyid dynastyestablished in the first half of the 15th century a type that is characterized in addition to the octagonal floor plan by a dome sometimes increased by a spool and by an adjacent arcade with Konsoldach. This type represents the mausoleum of Muhammad Shah in Delhi, whose dome closure in the form of a lotus and ornamental pavilion ( Chattris ) on the arcade roof already anticipates some features of later Mughal mosques and tombs. It is followed in the first half of the 16th century by the very similar graves of Isa Khan in Delhi and Sher Shah in Sasaram ( Bihar , Northeast India).

Mughal Empire
A pioneer of the Mughal tomb style was the mausoleum of the Mughal Emperor Humayun in Delhi, which was completed in 1571 as the first monumental tomb and the first monumental building of the Mughal period ever. It consists of an octagonal, domed central space, the four faces in the directions Pishtaqs with two Chattris are upstream. The dome is the first on the Indian subcontinent double-shelled, that is, two dome roofs were placed on top of each other, so that the inner ceiling does not match the curvature of the outer dome. Later builders took advantage of this design to bulge the outer pseudo-dome ever more onion-shaped. Four identical, octagonal corner buildings, each with a large chattri on the roof, fill the niches between the pishtaqs , so that the entire structure appears outwardly as a square building with bevelled corners and indented pishtaqs . The actual mausoleum rises on a floor-high, terraced pedestal, in whose outer walls numerous iwane were admitted. Humayun’s tomb combines Persian elements inherited from the local building tradition, the latter clearly outweighing the fact that not only the architect came from Persia but, unlike many earlier construction projects, a large part of the craftsmen employed were foreigners of foreign origin. Thus, Indian architraves, consoles and sculptural ornaments are completely pushed back in favor of keel bows and flat facade decoration. The Persian preference for symmetrical forms is reflected both in the tomb and in the surrounding, walled garden. The latter corresponds to the type of Char Bagh with a square layout and four footpaths, which form an axbox and thus divide the garden into four smaller squares.

The tomb of Emperor Akbar, who was very fond of Indian architecture, in Sikandra (Uttar Pradesh), however, takes strong bonds in the Hindu architecture. Built on a square ground plan, it rises pyramid-like in five receding floors. While the basement-like ground floor, with a Persian Ivan facade and a pishtaq on all four sides, uses the Islamic formal idiom, the upper floors are modeled after Hindu temple halls as open pillared halls, enriched by the Islamic vaults. The usual dome roof, however, is missing.
Under Akbar’s successors in the 17th century, there was a return to Persian stylistic traits, but without abandoning the Indo-Islamic symbiosis. At the same time, white marble replaced the red sandstone as the main building material, and the shapes generally took on softer features. The transition from the early Mogul Mausoleum to the mausoleum style is marked by the tomb of the minister Itimad-ud-Daula in Agra (Uttar Pradesh) , built between 1622 and 1628 . The small, completely built in marble construction is on a square floor plan. Four chattri- crowned minarets emphasize the corner points, while the main building is not completed by a dome, but by a pavilion with a curved, protruding roof in the Bengali style. Precious inlays in pietra-dura technology adorn the façade.

The change in style is finally completed with the Taj Mahal, completed in 1648, in Agra, the mausoleum for the chief wife of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan , which outperforms all earlier and later Mughal buildings in terms of balance and magnificence and is therefore regarded as the pinnacle of mogul architecture. The Taj Mahal combines characteristics of different predecessors, but deliberately avoids their weak points. From the tomb of Humayun he has taken over the arrangement of four corner buildings with roof pavilions around a domed central building with pishtaq on each of the four sides and the square plan with bevelled corners. However, the corner buildings do not protrude from the plain of the PishtaqFaçades. In addition, the distance between the roof pavilions and the dome is less than at the tomb of Humayun, whereby the Taj Mahal achieves a more harmonious overall impression than the older mausoleum, whose effect suffers from the spatial separation of the corner buildings of the main building. The increased by a tambour, double-shelled onion dome of the Taj Mahal is highly expansive and engages the lotus tip earlier mosque and Mausoleumsbauten on. The square base, with four tall, slender minarets at the corners, is reminiscent of the tomb of Jahangirin Lahore (Punjab, Pakistan), which consists of a simple, square platform with corner towers. Like the tomb of Itimad-ud-Daula, Pietra-dura marble and semi-precious stone inlays adorn the white marble walls of the Taj Mahal. Overall, the facade design with the two superposed Iwanen respectively on either side of the large Iwane the Pishtaqs to an older tomb in Delhi that the Khan-i-Khanan (around 1627), ajar. Like many former mausoleums, the Taj Mahal surrounds a walled garden of the Char-Bagh type.

Dekkan
The construction of early tombs from the early days of the Bahmanides around the middle of the 14th century is similar to that of the Tughluq mausoleums of the Delhi Sultanate. On a square, single-storey building rests a low trumpet dome. The defensive exterior is unadorned and closed except for the portal all around. Typical is a crenellated wreath as the upper end of the wall cube with special emphasis on the corner points. As of the late 14th century rectangular floor plans were also created, which were created by the juxtaposition of two square dome tombs on a common pedestal. The Tomb of Firuz Shah Bahmanis in Gulbarga ( Karnataka, Southwest India), completed around 1422, marks the transition to a more elaborate architectural style. It has been extended not only in plan by doubling a square structure, but also in elevation by a second floor. The façade is divided into kielbogige Iwane in the lower area as well as keiel-arched windows with stone trellises at the level of the upper floor.

In Bidar , Bijapur (both Karnataka) and Golkonda ( Andhra Pradesh , Southeast India) until the 17th century graves continued to develop on a square plan. Stretched drum domes accentuate the increasing mountain tendency. From the late 15th century, the domes above the warrior line rose in bulbous vault from a lotus flower cup. The lotus decor, as well as many other decorative elements of the late Dekkan architecture, such as console-based shadow roofs, is due to Hindu influence. The late highlight of the Dekkan mausoleum is the Gol Gumbaz, completed in 1659 in Bijapur, India’s largest domed building. The Gol Gumbaz is under OttomanInfluence, as both the ruling family of the Sultanate of Bijapur and some of the craftsmen involved in the construction were of Turkish descent. The tomb has a huge cubic structure, four seven-storey towers are provided at the corner points on octagonal. Each tower is crowned by a slightly spreading lotus dome, while the main dome is semicircular. The design of the facades and the interior was never completed.

Palace
The Islamic residences of the Middle Ages in India, with the exception of a few remnants of the wall, for example in Tughlaqabad in today’s Delhi, did not survive. In Chanderi and Mandu (Madhya Pradesh, central India) ruins from the 15th and early 16th centuries give a comparatively good idea of the palaces of the Sultans of Malwa . Built in 1425, the Hindola Mahal in Mandu consists of a long hall spanned by broad keel arches, and at the north end is a cross building with smaller rooms. High pointed arches break through the strong outer walls of the hall, which, as in the Tughluq era, had been fortress-shaped. The roof construction is not preserved. Indian Jharokhasloosen up the otherwise completely unadorned facade of the cross construction. Extensive terraces, some with water pools, and attached dome pavilions make the later palaces of Mandu seem far less defensive. Pointed arches dominate the façades, while Hindu elements such as Jharokha and Jali lattice are missing.

At the beginning of Mughal palace architecture stands the Fatehpur Sikri , which was founded in the second half of the 16th century and was for several years the capital of the Mughal Empire . The palace district consists of several staggered courtyards around which all buildings are grouped. The most important buildings include the public audience hall ( Diwan-i-Am ), the private audience hall ( Diwan-i-Khas ) and the Panch Mahal, The public audience hall is a simple, rectangular pavilion, while the square private audience hall rises over two floors. The ground floor has an entrance on all four sides, the first floor is surrounded by a balcony-like projecting gallery, and on the corner points of the roof rests ever a Chattri . Unique is the interior layout: in the middle there is a pillar that juts up like the branches of a tree. It supports the platform on which formerly the throne of the Mughal emperor Akbarwas standing. From the platform of the throne, bridges run in all four directions like a bridge.

The Jahangiri Mahal at Agra (Uttar Pradesh, North India), which was built around the same time as Fatehpur Sikri, is also extremely Indian in its interior. Rectangular and square columns with expansive consoles support the first floor. Its flat ceiling rests on sloping stone beams, which take over the static function of a vault. Along the façade to the courtyard, which lies exactly in the center of the building, which is completely symmetrical in contrast to the Panch Mahal of Fatehpur Sikri, a console-supported shadow roof stretches at the level of the first floor. Only on the outer facade Persian forms come to light. The entrance forms a kielbogiger Ivan, Implied arches decorate the two-dimensional outer walls. Indian influences also reveal themselves here in the console-supported eaves, the ornamental balconies on the portal construction as well as the chattris on the two towers, which emphasize the extreme points of the palace.

As in the sacral architecture, the transition from red sandstone to white marble as the preferred building material also took place at the palace during the second quarter of the 17th century under Mughal emperor Shah Jahan . In addition, Islamic forms came into their own again. Thus, although the open column pavilion was retained as the design of the palaces Fatehpur Sikris, but now took the place of sweeping consoles now Zackenbögen. The playful handling of spatial distribution and geometry practiced in Fatehpur Sikri also gave way to court arrangements oriented in the shape of a cross-ax, and a strict symmetry. In addition to flat roofs like the Diwan-i-Am and Diwan-i-Khas in Delhi, the Diwan-i-Khas in Lahore ( Punjab, Pakistan) or at the Anguri Bagh Pavilion in Agra, there are convex curved roofs of Bengali construction, for example at the Naulakha Pavilion in Lahore. In the second half of the 17th century, the palace architecture of the Mughals stopped.

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