Mughal Architecture Essay

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From the 16th to the 18th centuries India was synonymous with the "Empire of the Great Moghul". The Mughal dynasty, so called, because descendants of Chingiz Khan and Tamerlane (Timur), ruled from 1526 to 1858 over the larger part of South Asia and represented with the Safavids in Iran and the Ottomans in Asia Minor, the Balkans and the Near East, one of the three Muslim superpowers of the modern period. As a new dynasty which felt a strong need to assert its status and as an elitarian minority ruling over a vast territory of peoples of different creeds and cultures the Mughals grounded their claim to universal rule in a multi-cultural perspective. They were highly aware of the potential of architecture as a means of self representation. To express their 'multiple identity' architecturally, they drew from many divers supra regional and regional traditions which they synthesised and 'imperialised' so successfully that they created with the Taj Mahal the universally most widely accepted building. BADSHAHI MOSQUE: ‘Badshahi Mosque’, the heritage of Muslim rulers, also known as the ‘emperor’s mosque, is located in Lahore, Pakistan. It is the second largest mosque in Pakistan as well as South Asia. In world ranking it is the fifth largest mosque, after ‘Masjid al Haram’ of Makkah, ‘Masjid e Nabvi SAWW’ of Madina, ‘. This mosque has a capacity of accommodating 10,000 people for offering prayer in its prayer hall and 100,000 people in its courtyard. So, it can accommodate a total of 110,000 people in it at a time, the Hassan II Mosque in Casablanca, and Faisal Mosque in Islamabad. It remained the world’s largest mosque for a period of 313 years i.e. from 1673 to 1986. This landmark of Lahore is a major tourist attraction. Its minarets are 4.2 m taller than those of Taj Mahal. It depicts the art of Mughal era. It was built by Mughals in 1673. Its construction

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