Taj Mahal

In 1592, in Agra, a son was born to Prince Salim and one of his wives, Jodh Bai, a Hindu Princess. The child was given the name Khurram (meaning "joyous") by his grandfather, Akbar. Although Khurram was not the eldest of his grandsons, Akbar chose him to carry out his hopes for the future.

Akbar employed learned tutors to teach Khurram at the school of the royal mosque, but he was the young prince's real teacher, taking him hunting and showing him how to use weapons. He told him stories about heroic battles he had fought, about the glory of the empire, and how to be a great ruler. When Akbar died, the boy was so distressed that he refused to leave his grandfather's room until the body was taken away for the funeral.

After Akbar's death, Khurram became his father's favorite son and most trusted adviser. Prince Salim, who had now become the Emperor Jahangir, had a special throne made for him. In his memoirs Jahangir calls Khurram "in all respects the first of my sons."

The story of the building of the Taj Mahal begins on a festival day in Agra in the year 1607. It was the New Year's Fair at the Royal Meena Bazaar, a private marketplace in the palace gardens. In many Muslim societies then, as today, women spent most of their time indoors, only venturing outside if accompanied by a male relative and with their faces covered by a veil. For the women of the royal household, their only chance to meet and talk to men other than relatives was on "melas" or festival days at the Meena Bazaar. There the women sold trinkets at very high prices to nobles and courtiers. The story goes that the sixteen-year-old Prince Khurram stopped to haggle for gems at the stall of Arjumand Bano, the beautiful fifteen-year-old daughter of the prime minister, Asaf Khan. It was love at first sight.

Muslim law allowed every man up to four wives and many concubines. Princes were expected to marry into powerful families whose friendship was needed for political reasons. Therefore, Prince Khurram had to marry a Persian princess before he could marry Arjumand Bano. Five years later, never having laid eyes on her since that day at the bazaar in 1607, he was allowed to marry the girl with whom he had fallen in love.

Emperor Jahangir was so pleased with his son's choice of wife that he placed the betrothal ring on her finger himself. On their wedding day in 1612, a great procession was followed by a ceremony that took place at the home of the bride, as is the Muslim custom. At midnight a gigantic feast was given, honored by the presence of Emperor Jahangir himself. There Jahangir gave Arjumand Bano the title Mumtaz Mahal, meaning "Exalted One of the Palace."

Although the start to his marriage was blissful, Khurram's life as a prince was less than harmonious. Plotters at court threatened to destroy him. Jahangir's favorite wife, Nur Mahal, had been scheming to place one of her own children, Khurram's half-brother, on the throne after her husband's death. Realizing that his life was in danger, Khurram fled the court and gathered his own army.

By the time his father died in 1627, Khurram had the support of powerful men in the imperial army. Nur Mahal and her son were defeated and, in 1628, the exiled prince and Mumtaz Mahal declared themselves rulers of India. On his coronation, Prince Khurram took a new name to reflect his high status - Shah Jahan, or "King of the World."

The Mogul court was based in three cities: Agra, Delhi, and Lahore. But the new emperor ruled over a vast dominion that stretched from Assam in the east to Qandahar in the west; from the Upper Deccan in the south to the Pamir Mountains in the north. He gave generous gifts to his loyal followers - jade drinking cups, elephants, and daggers encrusted with gems. Enemies and potential rivals for the throne (including his remaining brothers and other male relatives) were executed.

Although Shah Jahan had other wives and concubines, Mumtaz Mahal was the great love of his life. Only she bore him children, and she went with him on all his travels, even when pregnant. She became his most trusted adviser and persuaded him to share her deep concern for people in need. Every morning, she distributed money and food to the poor who, starving and desperate, flocked to the palace gates. She drew up lists of widows, orphans, and the disabled so that the emperor could ensure that they were provided for. The royal poets wrote of Mumtaz Mahal's grace and beauty: her loveliness made the moon hide its face in shame. During nineteen years of marriage, Mumtaz Mahal gave birth to fourteen children, only seven of whom survived.

In 1631, Shah Jahan was engaged in a military campaign outside the city of Bhurhanpur. In the harem of the temporary encampment, Mumtaz Mahal lay dying, having just given birth to a healthy baby girl. Along with Wazir Khan and Sati-un-nissa, Shah Jahan sat by his wife's bedside and watched helplessly as her life ebbed away.

With Mumtaz Mahal at his side Shah Jahan had strengthened the empire, adding to it parts of the Deccan, and gaining from them wealth for the imperial treasury. After her death, however, he seemed to lose interest in warfare. It is reported that he locked himself in his rooms for eight days, refusing all food. Legend says that when he emerged his back was bent like an old man's, and his hair and beard had turned completely white.

Perhaps to overcome his grief, Shah Jahan now focused his mind upon great building projects. His reign is believed to mark the height of Mogul architectural genius. At Delhi, he supervised the construction of the Red Fort and the Jami Masjid, one of the largest mosques ever built in India.

At the Red Fort at Agra he built the Pearl Mosque. He also carried out many changes to the fort itself, replacing much of the original sandstone with white marble inlaid with precious stones. Like his forefathers, he devoted his time to building pleasure pavilions, gardens, and mausoleums, including a project that would dominate the rest of his life, an exquisite shrine to his dead wife - the Taj Mahal.

Shah Jahan decided that the Taj Mahal would be built on a site occupied by sprawling gardens on a bend in the left bank of the Yamuna River. The gardens were owned by a Hindu raja, to whom he gave four regal residences in exchange. Shah Jahan might have chosen the site for its beauty and because there was a clear view of it from the imperial palace at the Red Fort. It was close to Agra; perhaps he wanted the monument he was planning to be part of the community-a quiet, sacred place amid the noise and bustle of the city.

Legend has it that on her deathbed Mumtaz Mahal had asked Shah Jahan to build over her "such a temple as the world never saw." Very soon after her death, word reached the borders of India and lands beyond that the grief-stricken emperor was searching for an architect to build a magnificent tomb in memory of his beloved wife.

The Taj Mahal was designed by several architects under the direction of Shah Jahan himself and his chief architect, Ustad Ahmad, a Persian engineer. After drawing up detailed plans, the architects discussed them with master craftsmen, such as stonemasons and calligraphers.

The art of calligraphy was an important characteristic of Muslim architecture. The calligrapher Amanat Khan Shirazi had the job of decorating the walls of the Tai Mahal with Arabic lettering. It was unusual for craftsmen to sign their work, but Hanif of Baghdad, the master mason, and Amanat Khan were given permission to do so. Two extra calligraphers, famous for their fine work, were brought to Agra to assist the master calligrapher, together with the most skillful stonecutters. In all, there were 37 stonecutters, each having his own special skill, such as carving flowers or cutting gems.

The art of inlay work was perfected under the Moguls. At the Taj Mahal, floral patterns made of precious gems were cut into the marble. Mogul inlayers were so skilled that legend claims they could see through stone and cut gems with their eyes! Chiranji Lal from Delhi was chosen as the chief inlayer on the Taj Mahal.

Muslims believe the dome to be the most perfect shape on Earth. Shah Jahan wanted the best designer and builder to make the dome of the Tai Mahal. He chose Ismail Afandi from Turkey. On top of the dome would be a beautiful gold finial, cast by Qazim Khan, the famous metalworker from Lahore. To make sure that every detail of every stage of the building was perfect, two high-ranking nobles were appointed to supervise the whole operation.

By the time Mumtaz Mahal's body was brought back to Agra in 1631, Shah Jahan had approved the final plans for the Taj Mahal. A wooden model was made to show how the finished building would look. Before building work began, the Yamuna River was diverted so that the view from the finished tomb would be improved. Then workers cleared an area the size of three football fields, which they dug out for the foundations and filled with sediment. This ensured that no water from the river could seep into the building.

Thousands of laborers, craftspeople, and artists began to flock to Agra. In the 22 years it took to complete the Tai Mahal, 20,000 people were employed. Houses were needed for the workers who came, not only from India, but also from distant parts of the Mogul empire, places such as Baghdad, Samarkand, Constantinople, and Kandahar. A new suburb of Agra grew up around the unfinished Taj Mahal. It was called Mumtazabad in honor of the dead queen.

Shah Jahan had decided that the mausoleum would be built of white marble. He chose the unusual blue-veined marble from quarries at Makrana, near Jodhpur. Red sandstone from Akbar's now abandoned city of Fatehpur Sikri was used for the garden walls, entry arch, mosque, and rest house. Just as the best craftspeople were brought to Agra, so were the best materials: jade and crystal from China, turquoise from Tibet, and lapis lazuli from Afghanistan. Forty-three different types of gems were ultimately used to decorate the Tai Mahal.

A road ramp made of trampled earth was built, stretching right through the city of Agra and up to the site of the Tai Mahal. Along this 10-mi. ramp traveled carts carrying heavy slabs of marble and sandstone. In the 1640s Father Manrique, a Portuguese friar, described the building work as "still incomplete, the greater part of it remaining to be done." Along the route to Agra he saw great blocks of marble:

... of such unusual size and length that they drew the sweat of many powerful teams of oxen and of fierce-looking, big-horned buffaloes, which were dragging enormous, strongly made wagons, in teams of twenty or thirty animals....

The first buildings in the Taj Mahal complex to be completed were the tomb itself and the two side buildings. Next came the four minarets, and finally the gateway and remaining buildings. Everything was constructed to harmonize completely, because Islamic law states that once a building has been raised nothing more can ever be added to it or taken away from it. Once the mausoleum of the Taj Mahal was completed in around 1652, Shah Kahan spent most of his time in Delhi, supervising work on other buildings.

Christine Moorcroft. . Raintree Steck-Vaughn, Austin, Texas. 1998.

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