ARTICLE REVIEW

M.A. Chaghtai. Indo -Muslim Architecture: Annals of the Bhandarkar

Oriental Research Institute, 1941, Vol 22, No 1/2 (1941), pp. 85 -93.
Bhandari Oriental Research Institute .

Dr. M.A. Chaghtai writing on Indo-Muslim architecture has been a very useful
document for understanding and acknowledge the magnificent edifices of the
Mohammedans in India. For of the various civilizations with which the
Mohammedans came into contact in the course of their world conquest, none
could have been more diametrically opposed to their ideals than that of people
of India1. Mohammedans crushed the Hindu temples and displaced them with
mosques and tombs to show their powers and to islamicized the place. Much
of the contemporary evidence of the temple desecration cited by Hindu
nationalists is found in Persian material translated and published during the
rise of British Hegemony in India2.
Dr Chaghtai begins with early conquest of Mohammedans in Sindh India in
712 AD yet India didn’t have any tangible archaeological evidence. In the
eleventh century, Turco-persian tribes under the Samanids and Ghaznavids,
driven out by Ghurids, retreatd to the Punjab, dragging the region into the
islamicized world Central Asia. The final conquest fell to general Qutb al-din
Aybak, who took delhi in 1193 3.
Dr Chaghtai says that the history of Indo-muslim architecture begins with the
contruction of Quwwat-ul-islam at delhi and its minar(Qutb Minar) which
stand as a landmark for miles around, it was founded during the reign of Qutb-
uddin Aibak, a viceroy of Muhammad Ghori, sultan of Ghazna, to celebrate his
victory over the Rajput forces(of Prithvi Raj Chauhan) in 1911. It was erected
on the site of Hindu and Jain temples and they reuse their pillars to construct
their complexes.

1 BROWN, PERCY. (N.D.). INDIAN ARCHITECTURE (ISLAMIC PERIOD). K.R.J. BOOK INTERNATIONAL.

2 (Eaton 2000) TEMPLE DESECRATION AND INDO-MUSLIM STATES

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MOZZATI, L. (n.d.). ISLAMIC ART . PRESTEL.
Furthermore he says that the nature of both religion are very much
contrasting whether in terms of their beliefs or in their sacred buildings.
Compared with the clarity of the mosques, the temple is an adobe of mystery;
the court of the former are open to light and air, with many doorways inviting
publicity, the latter encloses “a phantasma of massive darkness,” having
sombre passages leading to dim cells, jealously guarded and remote4. Temples
consist of a shrine (Garbhgriha) to pay homage to the diety surrounded by a
spire where as in muslims, turns the direction toward Mecca is sufficient.
Muslims decorate their walls with florals designs(arabesque decoration) and
calligraphy whereas the walls of the temples are adorned with animals,
mythical figures, human froms and narratives of its sacred texts.
To build their sacred places, muslims employed Hindu masons who were
ignorant of the proper Muslim methods and forms, but they built according to
the suggestions of the chief muslim architects. Indians masons had engaged in
temple building from stones of exquisite designs; inspite of all the differences
in structure Indian masons learn this new form of architecture with the help
of muslim guides and they become used to with this new craft. Sir John
Marshall well said: “To create a successful building out of such material, to
recoincile two styles so characteristically opposed without transgressing the
standard formulas of Islamic art, might well have been deemed an impossible
task.”
Muslim buildings all over the world follows Arcuade(arches and vault) system
where Hindu architecture follows Trabeate(column and architrave) systems
for resting their roofs. Arthur Kingsley Porter has well remarked that the
pendentives, the main feature of the dome construction, were known in the
east, at a very early epoch and the arch among the arabs was so common as a
special feature of their construction that they used to say, “an arch never
sleeps”. Thus the arch and the dome with the muslim have been from time
immemorial the key-note of their construction. It was arch and dome that they
always regarded as their own and as symbolic of their faith. “Other
characterstic feature which they introduce were minar or minaret, the
pendentive and squinch arch, stalactite, honey combing and half dome portal.
Elaborate decoration and highly colored ornament were at all times dear to
the heart of the muslim.

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(Brown)BROWN, PERCY. (N.D.). INDIAN ARCHITECTURE (ISLAMIC PERIOD). K.R.J. BOOK INTERNATIONAL.
Dr Chaghtai describes the monuments of the Tughlaq dynasty as massive and
with exterior simplicity. Sultan Firoz Shah Tughlaq can specially be regarded
as one of the most illustrious builders of India. At the end of the fourteenth
century almost all the provinces broke away from suzerainity of the sultans of
Delhi and thus different dynasties in different parts adopted their own designs
according to local facilities.
Dr Chaghtai vast knowledge of the Indo-muslim architects leads him to
analyse the precursors or the protypes of the Taj-Mahal. Chaghtai article gives
us a panaromic view of the initial and mature phases of the archuitecture in
India but lacks the last or declining phase of Indo-muslim architecture. Article
doesn’t dive into the cultural and socio-political changes that had happened
after the advent of Mohammedans. He gives us an overview of Indo-muslim
architecture which is just the beginning, but to understand the architecture we
need to combine it with the dynasty, the geographical factors and socio-
political stuations because Indo-muslim architecture varies regionally
majorly. Delhi which had been the major centres of foreign invasions, it had
many mosques, tombs, madarsas and their saint’s grave which helps us to
understand the builders an Muslim patrons mentality but this article doesn’t
mention any of these aspects. Mughal period is the pinnacle of Indo-Muslim
Art and Architecture in which miniature paintings takes its whole space and
architecture was on its pinnacle from the era of the Akbar, which chaghtai
forgot to noted down.
Indo-Muslim architecture needs to be documented and critically analysed, so
we can know about their origin, the pattern of their developments, their
psychological and metaphysical meaning.