Indo-Islamic architecture is the architecture of the Indian subcontinent produced by and for Islamic patrons and purposes. 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.Harle, 423-424 Succeeding the Ghurids was the Delhi Sultanate, a series of Central Asian dynasties that consolidated much of North, East, and Central India, and later the Mughal Empire during the early 16th century. Both of these dynasties introduced Islamic architecture and art styles from West Asia into the Indian subcontinent.Yale, 164-165
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. The exteriors of both were very often topped by large domes, and made extensive use of arches. Both of these features were hardly used in Hindu temple architecture and other indigenous Indian styles. 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.Harle, 421, 425; Yale, 165; Blair & Bloom, 149
Islamic buildings initially adapted the skills of a workforce trained in earlier Indian traditions to their own designs. Unlike most of the Islamic world, where brick tended to predominate, India had highly skilled builders well used to producing stone masonry of extremely high quality.Harle, 424; Yale, 165 Alongside the architecture developed in Delhi and prominent centres of Mughal culture such as Agra, Lahore and Allahabad, a variety of regional styles developed in regional kingdoms like the Bengal, Gujarat, Deccan, Jaunpur and Kashmir Sultanates. By the Mughal period, generally agreed to represent the peak of the style, aspects of Islamic style began to influence architecture made for Hindus, with even temples using scalloped arches, and later domes. This was especially the case in palace 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.
Indo-Islamic architecture has left a large impact on modern Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi architecture, as in the case of its influence on the Indo-Saracenic Revivalism of the late British Raj. Both secular and religious buildings are influenced by Indo-Islamic architecture.
Architecture of the Delhi Sultanate
The best-preserved example of a mosque from the days of the infancy of Islam in South Asia is the ruined mosque at Banbhore in Sindh, Pakistan, from the year 727, from which only the plan can be deduced.Port of Banbhore, UNESCO Tentative list; Yale, 28-29
The start of the Delhi Sultanate in 1206 under Qutb ud-Din Aibak introduced a large Islamic state to India, using Central Asian styles.Harle, 423-424 The important Qutb Complex in Delhi was begun under Muhammad of Ghor, by 1199, and continued under Qutb al-Din Aibak and later sultans. The Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque, now a ruin, was the first structure. 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. The style was Iranian, but the arches were still corbelled in the traditional Indian way.Yale, 164-165; Harle, 423-424; Blair & Bloom, 149
Beside it is the extremely tall Qutb Minar, a minaret or victory tower, whose original four stages reach 73 meters (with a final stage added later). Its closest comparator is the 62-metre all-brick Minaret of Jam in Afghanistan, of c.1190, a decade or so before the probable start of the Delhi tower.Also two huge minarets at Ghazni. 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.Yale, 164; Harle, 424 (quoted); Blair & Bloom, 149 In general minarets were slow to be used in India, and are often detached from the main mosque where they exist.Harle, 429
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.Yale, 164 (quoted); Harle, 425 Other elements were added to the complex over the next two centuries.
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. Here Hindu temple columns (and possibly some new ones) are piled up in threes to achieve extra height. Both mosques had large detached screens with pointed corbelled arches added in front of them, probably under Iltutmish a couple of decades later. In these the central arch is taller, in imitation of an iwan. At Ajmer the smaller screen arches are tentatively cusped, for the first time in India.Blair & Bloom, 149-150; Harle, 425
By around 1300 true domes and arches with voussoirs were being built; the ruined Tomb of Balban (d. 1287) in Delhi may be the earliest survival.Harle, 425 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. The pointed arches come together slightly at their base, giving a mild horseshoe arch effect, and their internal edges are not cusped but lined with conventionalized "spearhead" projections, possibly representing lotus buds. Jali, stone openwork screens, are introduced here; they already had been long used in temples.Blair & Bloom, 151
Tughlaq architecture
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. Timber is also used internally. This was the earliest major monument of the Tughlaq dynasty (1320–1413), built during the unsustainable expansion of its massive territory. It was built for a Sufi saint rather than a sultan, and most of the many Tughlaq tombs are much less exuberant. 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. Both these tombs have external walls sloping slightly inwards, by 25° in the Delhi tomb, like many fortifications including the ruined Tughlaqabad Fort opposite the tomb, intended as the new capital.Blair & Bloom, 151-156; Harle, 425-426
The Tughlaqs had a corps of government architects and builders, and in this and other roles employed many Hindus. They left many buildings, and a standardized dynastic style.Blair & Bloom, 151 The third sultan, Firuz Shah (r. 1351–88) is said to have designed buildings himself, and was the longest ruler and greatest builder of the dynasty. His Firoz Shah Palace Complex (started 1354) at Hisar, Haryana is a ruin, but parts are in fair condition.Blair & Bloom, 154; Harle, 425 Some buildings from his reign take forms that had been rare or unknown in Islamic buildings.Blair & Bloom, 154-156 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.Blair & Bloom, 154-156; Harle, 425
By this time Islamic architecture in India had adopted some features of earlier Indian architecture, such as the use of a high plinth,Blair & Bloom, 149 and often mouldings around its edges, as well as columns and brackets and hypostyle halls.Blair & Bloom, 156 After the death of Firoz the Tughlaqs declined, and the following Delhi dynasties were weak. Most of the monumental buildings constructed were tombs, although the impressive Lodi Gardens in Delhi (adorned with fountains, charbagh gardens, ponds, tombs and mosques) were constructed by the late Lodi dynasty. The architecture of other regional Muslim states was often more impressive.Harle, 426; Blair & Bloom, 156
Pre-Mughal regional architecture
Significant regional styles developed in the independent sultanates formed when the Tughlaq empire weakened in the mid-14th century, and lasted until most were absorbed into the Mughal Empire in the 16th century. The sultanates of the Deccan Plateau, Gujarat, Bengal and Kashmir are discussed below. The architecture of the Malwa and Jaunpur sultanates has also left some significant buildings.Harle, 431-432
Deccan sultanates
The Bahmani Sultanate in the Deccan broke away from the Tughlaqs in 1347, and ruled from Gulbarga, Karnataka and then Bidar until overrun by the Mughals in 1527. The main mosque (1367) in the large Kalaburagi Fort or citadel is unusual in having no courtyard. There are a total of 75 domes, all small and shallow and small except for a large one above the mihrab and four lesser ones at the corners. The large interior has a central hypostyle space, and wide aisles with "transverse" arches springing from unusually low down (illustrated). This distinctive feature is found in other Bahmanid buildings, and probably reflects Iranian influence, which is seen in other features such as a four-iwan plan and glazed tiles, some actually imported from Iran, used elsewhere. The architect of the mosque is said to have been Persian.Blair & Bloom, 156; Harle, 433
Some later Bahminid royal tombs are double, with two units of the usual rectangle-with-dome form combined, one for the ruler and the other for his family,Harle, 433 as at the Haft Dombad ("Seven Domes") group of royal tombs outside Gulbarga. The Mahmud Gawan Madrasa (begun 1460s) is a large ruined madrasa "of wholly Iranian design" in Bidar founded by a chief minister, with parts decorated in glazed tiles imported by sea from Iran.Harle, 433 Outside the city the Ashtur tombs are a group of eight large domed royal tombs. These have domes which are slightly pulled in at the base,Harle, 433 predating the onion domes of Mughal architecture.
The Qutb Shahi dynasty of Hyderabad, not absorbed by the Mughals until 1687, greatly developed the city and its surrounding region, building many mosques such as the Mecca Masjid, Khairtabad Mosque, Hayat Bakshi Mosque and Toli Mosque, as well as the Golconda Fort, tombs of the Qutb Shahis, Charminar, Char Kaman and Taramati Baradari. Tipu Sultans Summer Palace in Bengaluru is also a beautiful example.
Bengal Sultanate