The Cambridge History of India, Vol. IV: The Mughul Period v4.c23.s4.90

v4.c23.s4.90

Although owing to the unsettled conditions of the country but little encouragement to architecture was possible during the early years of the Mughul dynasty, a few buildings of a private character which were erected in the neighbourhood of Delhi show that the style of the Sayyids and Afghāns as produced in the previous century still continued. A tomb, with its adjoining mosque, known as the Jamālī, built about 1530, illustrates the demand that was then arising for a richer and more decorative treatment of these rather sombre structures. The Jamālī mosque will be referred to later, as its connection with a phase of building which succeeded it is important. But the Sayyid-Afghān style was more suitable for tombs than for any other purpose, as several mausoleums built near Delhi about this time testify. That of ʿĪsā Khān, erected in 1547, is a well-balanced composition, standing within its own walled enclosure, and including a mosque on its western side. Enclosure, terrace, platform and mausoleum are all designed on an octagonal plan, with eight kiosks of the same shape rising above its crenellated parapet. Each angle of its pillared verandah is strengthened by a sloping buttress, the final instance of the use of this "batter", which, introduced by Fīrūz Tughluq, had now persisted for two centuries. In another large tomb in much the same style, that of Adham Khān, constructed some twenty years later, there is no sign of this characteristic slope, which evidently ceased with the tomb of ʿĪsā Khān. Adham Khān's tomb is the last building of this type, and although it can hardly be described as decadent, its trite and uninspiring elevation conveys the impression that the potential growth of the style was at an end.