The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c30.19

v3.c30.19

In 1230 A.D. the Emperor Iltutmish more than doubled the area of the Quwwat-ul-Islām mosque by throwing out wings to the prayer chamber and screen and by adding an outer court large enough to embrace within its surrounding colonnades the Great Minar begun by Qutb-ud-dīn Aibak. Whether of set purpose or because there were no more temples to despoil, fresh materials were specially quarried for these extensions, and it is significant of the extent to which the Muhammadans were now asserting their own ideas at Delhi, that the new work was fundamentally Islamic in character and manifestly designed, if not executed, by Muslim craftsmen. Shafts and capitals and architraves of a Hindu pattern were still used for the *līwān* and colonnades, but in the screen extensions, which were the outstanding features of the new additions, Indian influence is visible in little except the actual construction of the arches. In Qutb-ud-dīn’s screen the inscriptions were the only part of the surface ornament which were Muhammadan; all the rest was Indian and modelled with true Indian feeling for plastic form. In Iltutmish’s work, on the other hand, the reliefs are flat and lifeless, stencilled as it were on the surface of the stone, and their formal patterns are identical with those found on contemporary Muslim monuments in other countries. It is fair, however, to add that what this latter work loses in spontaneous charm and vitality, it more than gains in organic unity and tectonic propriety.