Mosques and Minarets

The variety and role of the mosques and the evolution of materials and design are discussed with surveys and photographs beginning with mosques with traditional plans in the town and fort, including the Auḥadī Jāmi‘, to the impact of the Lodī Jāmi‘ of Sikandra where a massive domed structure in the Delhi style, with a shrine included in the courtyard to give it a special status, displays Delhi’s new dominance. Small three-bayed mosques and their patrons, where known, are studied, as is the emergence of a new mosque plan. In these the prayer hall extrudes into the walled courtyard, explained through the surveys of the Tāletī Masjid, the ‘Īdgāh Masjid and two mosques at Sikandra. This plan, first seen in Bayana, was adopted on a grand scale by the Mughal Emperors, exemplified in the Mosque of Shaikh Salīm Chishtī at Fathpūr Sikrī, the Jāmiʿ of Shāhjahānābād at Delhi and the Bādshāhī (Pādshāhī) Masjid at Lahore. Minarets as landmarks and symbols of power, beginning with that of Dāwūd Khān in the Fort followed by the unfinished Ukhā Minār, planned by Niẓām Khān to tower over the city, are also surveyed, along with a third unfinished minaret in the Fort.