Twilight of the Sultanate c16.s1.44

c16.s1.44

The construction of the Atālā mosque was started in about 1373 during the reign of Fīrōz Shāh Tughlaq and was completed in about 1408 in the reign of Ibrahīm Sharqī (1401-1440). It was erected on the site and from the material of an earlier Hindu temple said to have been built by Raja Vijāya Chandra Dēva of Varanasi.²⁸ Built on the orthodox plan, it consists of a square courtyard, measuring 177 feet on each side, with the prayer chamber on the west and colonnaded cloisters on the other sides. The domes over the prayer chamber and its back wall, the tapering minarets, the *kangūra* cornices and the arches and trellis windows are of the Tughlaq style. On the other hand the imposing propylon (75 feet high), propylon screens and surface decoration give it, and the Jaunpur style, its distinctive character. The Atālā mosque is so like a Hindu arrangement "that one might almost at first sight be tempted … to fancy it was originally a Hindu monastery",²⁹ but it also exhibits the saracenic arcuate style in as great a degree of perfection as is exhibited at any period, prior or subsequent. The one defect pointed out in this edifice is that the propylon was made so lofty that the domes are hidden from view, but the architects seem to have so designed the building that while the massive propylon looks grand and imposing from the front, the domes seen from the sides and the rear are equally beautiful.