Twilight of the Sultanate c16.s1.67

c16.s1.67

Ahmad Shāh decorated his capital with all kinds of elegant buildings—fort, mosques, gates and tombs. From the fort to the gateway known as the Tīn Darwāzā and thence to the Jama' Masjid it was an achievement in town-planning. The Jama' Masjid of Ahmadabad was completed in A. D. 1423 and is "generally considered the high water-mark of mosque design in western India, if not in the entire country".⁴² Its spacious courtyard of 49,500 square feet and some 300 tall, slender, closely set pillars simulate "a thick grove of silver pine trunks".⁴³ It was but fitting that his son and successor Muhammad Shāh (1442-51) interred Ahmad Shāh in front of the eastern entrance to the Jama' Masjid and sustained his style in his tomb.