The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c30.s1.14

v3.c30.s1.14

The excellent taste and originality displayed by the architects of Ahmad Shāh are equally evident in the few monuments left by his successor Muhammad Shāh II (1442–57), notably in the mausoleum of Sultān Ahmad, where he himself and his son Qutb-ud-dīn are interred, in the ‘Tombs of the Queens’ (*Rāṇī-kā-Hujra*), and in the mosque and tomb of Shaikh Ahmad Khattrī at Sarkhej. Of these the two last mentioned are by far the most important, not only because of their own intrinsic merit, but because the style they ushered in was subsequently adopted for the whole of this admirable group of monuments at Sarkhej. Both buildings were begun in 1446 by Muhammad Shāh and finished five years later by Qutb-ud-dīn. The mausoleum (104 feet square) is the largest of its kind in Gujarāt. It comprises a square central chamber, surmounted by a single large dome with four aisles of slender columns on each face, roofed by smaller domes. The aisles are closed from without by perforated screens of stone, and the central chamber is separated from the verandahs by panels of brass, fretted and chased and tooled into an infinite variety of patterns. The mosque, which has an area of rather less than half that of the *Jāmi‘ Masjid* at Ahmadābād, differs from its predecessors in that it possesses neither arched façade nor minars and that its roof is of the same uniform height throughout. Its beauty, like that of the tomb and of the exquisite little pavilion in front of it, is due to its chaste simplicity and classic restraint; and indeed, considered on its merits as a pillared hall, it is difficult to imagine how it could have been improved upon. But whether a hall such as this, constructed on purely Hindu principles, fulfils the Muslim ideal of a *masjid*, is open to question. Such a design may perhaps be admissible in a quasi-private mosque, such as this, attached to a *Dargāh*; it would certainly not be suitable for a public place of worship.