The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c30.28

v3.c30.28

The effect of these developments upon the style of the Khaljī period is clearly evidenced in the two principal monuments of ‘Alā-ud-dīn’s reign: the Jamā‘at Khāna Masjid at the *Dargāh* of Nizām-ud-dīn Auliyā and the ‘Alāī Darwāza at the Qutb. The former is the earliest example in India of a mosque built wholly in accordance with Muhammadan ideas and with materials specially quarried for the purpose. It is of red sandstone and consists of three chambers: a square one in the centre and an oblong one on either side, each entered through a broad archway in the façade. All three entrances, as well as two smaller ones between them, are framed in bands of Quranic inscriptions and embellished with lotus cuspings. The central chamber is covered by a single dome (38 inches diameter) supported at the corners on fourfold squinch arches. Around the base of the dome, internally, are eight arched niches, four closed and four pierced through the thickness of the masonry. The side chambers, which are divided at their middle by a double arch and roofed by two small domes, differ from the central one in that their walls are of plastered rubble instead of sandstone, while their domes are supported on triangular pendentives instead of squinches. Originally, it is said, the building was intended by its author, Khizr Khān, son of ‘Alā-ud-dīn, not as a mosque but as a tomb for Shaikh Nizām-ud-dīn and consisted of the central chamber only, the side wings being added in the early Tughluq period when it was converted into a mosque, while further alterations and repairs are mentioned in the *Thamarātu-l-Quds* as having been executed during the reign of Akbar. These last are patent at a glance and include, besides other items, the screens in the side portals (visible in Pl. VII) and the painted decorations in the interior of the prayer chamber, all of which are typical of the Moghul period. But that the side wings were a later addition is more than questionable; the design of the whole façade is so homogeneous and so nobly planned, that it is well nigh incredible that it could have been the creation of two different epochs or that the new work could have been so cleverly dove-tailed into the old and the new carvings imitated so skilfully as to defy detection.