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The mosques of Bayana, Rajasthan, and the emergence of a prototype for the mosques of the Mughals

The mosques of Bayana, Rajasthan, and the emergence of a prototype for the mosques of the Mughals

Shokoohy, Mehrdad and Shokoohy, Natalie H. (2010) The mosques of Bayana, Rajasthan, and the emergence of a prototype for the mosques of the Mughals. The Medieval History Journal, 13 (2). pp. 153-197. ISSN 0971-9458 (Print), 0973-0753 (Online) (doi:https://doi.org/10.1177/097194581001300201)

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Abstract

Bayana’s political autonomy during the sultanate history of Delhi is reflected in its architectural monuments, particularly the mosques. The town, built by Muhammad b. Sām’s governor Bahā al-dīn Tughrul, has preserved his late twelfth-century mosque, which together with its early fourteenth-century extension was praised by Ibn Battūta, but it is the later mosques which show a pattern of continuous independence in architectural style. When in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries arcuate forms imported from Khurāsān flourished in Delhi, the Bayana architects, although aware of the style continued to choose the ancient Indian trabeate system, not as a result of lack of innovation, but as a display of their autonomy. Their design developments in the late fifteenth to sixteenth centuries led to a new concept for mosque plans, where the prayer hall no longer filled the western side, but jutted out into the courtyard, so that the northern and southern walls of the mosque stood within its courtyard. Akbar who had his capitals in Agra and Fathpur Sikri, once two villages in the Bayana territory, also adopted features of the architecture of the region. The new mosque plan first appears to some extent in Shaikh Salīm Chishtī’s Mosque, but the fully-fledged plan becomes a feature of later Mughal mosques of the time of Shāh Jahān and his successors.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: architecture, mediaeval history of India, Bayana town, Bayana Fort, Bayana region, history of Bayana, Muslim architecture of India, mosque design, Mughal architecture
Subjects: B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BP Islam. Bahaism. Theosophy, etc
D History General and Old World > DS Asia
N Fine Arts > NA Architecture
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group: Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences
Related URLs:
Last Modified: 14 Oct 2016 09:12
URI: http://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/4709

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