The Cambridge History of India, Vol. III: Turks and Afghans v3.c30.s1.21.2

v3.c30.s1.21.2

Of these the oldest is the mosque of Dilāwar Khān Ghūrī (1401–05), the founder of the Mālwa dynasty. Like the *Lāṭ Masjid* in Dhār, which was erected by the same king, it is chiefly interesting for the many members—pillars and architraves and carved ceilings—stripped from Hindu temples and for the manner in which they are turned to account. Dilāwar Khān himself first established his capital at Dhār, the small fort of which had been built, so it is said, by Muhammad Tughluq, but realising the imperative need of larger and stronger defences, he lost no time in transferring it to Māndū. Hūshang, his son, known also as Alp Khān, to whom the task of fortifying the new city was entrusted, seems to have had ideas of building at once as sound and as lordly as his contemporary Ahmad Shāh I of Gujarāt. It was Hūshang who planned and began the magnificent *Jāmi‘ Masjid* afterwards to be finished by Mahmūd Khaljī; it was he probably who built the remarkable Darbār hall now known as the *Hindolā Mahall*, and it was he, too, who was doubtless responsible for the vast scale of the fortifications. Whether these works are the offspring of his own or of his architect’s imagination is not known. Whosesoever they were, they do unbounded credit to their author.