The Taj Mahal - A Jewel of Muslim Art in India

Any photograph of the Taj Mahal falls short of conveying the legend, the poetry and the romance that shroud what Rabindranath Tagore calls “a teardrop on the cheek of time”. Taj Mahal means “Crown Palace” and is in fact the most well-preserved and architecturally beautiful tomb in the world. It is best described by an English poet, Sir Edwin Arnold, as “Not a piece of architecture, as other buildings are, but a proud passion of an emperor’s love wrought in living stones.” It is a celebration of woman’s love, exquisitely portrayed in marble.

An immense mausoleum of white marble, built in Agra between 1631 and 1648 by order of the Mughal emperor Shah Jehan in memory of his favourite wife, the Taj Mahal is the jewel of Muslim art in India and one of the universally admired masterpieces of the world’s heritage.

UNESCO declared the Taj a World Heritage Site in 1983.

Agra, situated about 200 km south of New Delhi, was the capital of the Mughals, the Muslim Emperors who ruled Northern India between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Shah Jehan and Mumtaz Mahal were married in 1612 and, over the next 18 years, had 14 children together. The Empress used to accompany her husband in his military campaigns, and it was in 1630, in Burhanpur, that she gave birth to her last child, for she died in childbirth. So great was the Emperor love to his wife that he ordered the building of the most beautiful mausoleum on Earth for her.

Having buried her down at Burhanpur, it was impossible to transfer all the marble there, as it would have cost an entire fortune and an entire lifetime. So, when Agra was chosen as the only alternative, her grave was uprooted, brought to Agra and transferred to the monument.

Construction began in 1631 and was completed in 22 years. Twenty thousand people were deployed to work on it. It was designed by the Iranian architect Istad Usa and it is best appreciated when the architecture and its adornments are linked to the passion that inspired it. It is a symbol of eternal love.

The Taj rises on a high red sandstone base topped by a huge white marble terrace on which rests the famous dome flanked by four tapering minarets. Within the dome lies the jewel-inlaid cenotaph of the queen. So exquisite is the workmanship that the Taj has been described as “designed by giants and finished by jewellers”. The only asymmetrical object in the Taj is the casket of the emperor which was built beside the queen’s, as an afterthought. The emperor was deposed by his son and imprisoned in the Great Red Fort for eight years but was later buried in the Taj. During his imprisonment he was barred from visiting Taj. What he could have was just a little view in a reflection of a diamond.

The unique Mughal style combines elements of Persian, Central Asian, and Islamic architecture. Most impressive is the black and white chessboard marble floor. On closer look, the lettering of the Quran verses around the archways appears to be uniform, regardless of their height. The lettering spacing and density has been customized to give this impression to the beholder.

Other illusionary effects have been accounted for in the geometry of the tomb and the tall minarets. The impressive artwork includes geometric elements, plants and flowers, mostly common in Islamic architecture. The level of sophistication in artwork becomes obvious when one realizes that a 3 cm decorative element contains more than 50 inlaid gemstones.

The dome is made of white marble, but the tomb is set against an awesome backdrop of the river and it is this background that works its magic of colours through their reflection and transforms the view of the Taj. The colours change at different hours of the day and during different seasons. Like a jewel, the Taj sparkles in moonlight when the semi-precious stones inlaid into the white marble on the main mausoleum catch the glow of the moon. The Taj is pinkish in the morning, milky white in the evening and golden when the moon shines.

This wonderful tomb is well worth a visit. Agra is two and a half hours by express train from New Delhi.