The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c30.s1.11

v3.c30.s1.11

The obscurity which envelops the authorship of most of the buildings described above extends also to the single important monument, which on the authority of the *Riyāz-us-Salātīn* is commonly accredited to the short-lived Habashī dynasty (1487–93). This is the Fīrūza (or *Chirāgh*) minar at Gaur, which, like the minars at the Qutb and at Daulatābād, was designed perhaps to do duty both as a Tower of Victory and the *ma’zina* of a mosque that has since disappeared. It was a five-storeyed tower about 84 feet in height—excluding a high masonry plinth on which it formerly stood—and ascended by a spiral staircase within. The three lower storeys were twelve-sided and of equal dimensions, separated one from the other by bands of simple ornament. Then came a projecting balcony and above it two circular storeys diminishing in size, the topmost being pierced with four arched openings and surmounted by a dome, like the crowning cupolas of Tughluq buildings. Besides its surface decorations in brick and terracotta, the body of the tower was also embellished with blue and white tiles, many of which were found in the débris at its foot. According to the *Riyāz-us-Salātīn*, the author of the minar was Saif-ud-dīn Fīrūz Shāh (a.d. 1487–89) and this date is probably correct. On grounds of style Cunningham was in favour of placing it nearly a century earlier, ascribing it to Saif-ud-dīn Hamza Shāh (1396–1406). As a fact, however, the style of the minar accords far better with the close of the fifteenth rather than of the fourteenth century, and this date is confirmed both by other details of its decoration and by the presence of the glazed and coloured tiling referred to above which had not been introduced into Bengal at the time proposed by Cunningham.