swahili architectural influnces
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“A collection of merits…”:1 Architectural influnces
in the Friday Mosque and Kazaruni Tomb Complex at
Cambay, GujaratElizabeth Lambourn
Published online: 11 Aug 2010.
To cite this article: Elizabeth Lambourn (2001) “A collection of merits…”:1 Architectural influnces in the Friday Mosque a
Kazaruni Tomb Complex at Cambay, Gujarat, South Asian Studies, 17:1, 117-149, DOI: 10.1080/02666030.2001.9628596
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02666030.2001.9628596
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"A collection of m er its../':1 Architectural
influnces in the Friday Mosque and
Kazaruni Tomb Complex at Cambay,
Gujarat
ELIZABETH LAMBOURN
"Cambay is one of the most beautiful cities as regards the artistic architecture of its houses and the construction of
i ts mos ques. T he reason is that the majority of i ts inhabitants are foreign m erchants, w ho continual ly b ui ld theie
beauti ful houses and wonderful mosques - an achievement in which they endeavour to surpass each other."
Ibn B attuta, ca. 743/Ί 3422
Chitlorgarh
I. Map of west ern India with the principal sites mentio ned.
Tu g h lu q a rch i t ec tu re h as j u s t l y b een d esc r ib ed b y
An th o n y Welch an d Ho w ard Cran e as a t u rn in g p o in tin the histor y of Ind ia's Islamic arch itectu re (Welch &
Crane, 1983, p. 123). Thanks to the efforts of these, and
other , scholars Tughluq arc h i tecture i s becom ing ever
bet ter known and the las t twenty years have seen
su b s t an t i a l ad v an ces i n t h e d o cu m en ta t i o n o f n ew
structures and in the analysis of Tughluq bui ld ing types
and pat ronage. Much at ten t ion has obviously focused on
the Tughluq arch i tecture that surv ives at Delh i , the
capi tal , bu t a large num ber of s t ructures s t il l remain to b e
studied in the provinces of the Tughluq empire. The
stud y of these provinc ial mo num ents is obviously
im p o r t an t fo r co m p le t i n g o u r p i c tu re o f Tu g h lu q
arch i t ec tu re an d p a t ro n ag e , an d u n d er s t an d in g t h e
exten t to which Tughluq forms were d isseminated in the
rest o f the Empire and adapted to local s ty les and
condi t ions. Moreover , in many cases these monuments
also represen t the founda t ions of the later reg ional s ty les
of Islamic architecture that grew up after the collapse of
the Tughluq Empire at the end of the 14th century. In the
changed pol i t ical contex t of the 15th century , these
117
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ELIZABETH LAMBOURN
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Ground plan of the Friday mosque and
Kazaruni tom b complex, Cambay.
Gujarat. (From Burgess, 1896.)
View o f the Friday mosque and Kazaruni tom b comp lex at Cambay, fro m the east.
structures are no longer provincial reflections of a distant
capital but central models for the architecture of the new
independent Sul tanates .
The State of Gujarat in western India preserves a
large group of Tughluq s t ruc tures , pr inc ipa l ly la rge
congregational, or Friday, mosques, built in the years
fol lowing the Musl im conques t of the region in
704/1304-05 under the Khaljis .3 Many of these structures
are s t i l l unknown, documented only through Archaeo
logical Survey of India volumes, and practically all
would merit fuller publication.4 This article focuses on
two of the ear l ies t , mos t innovat ive , complex and
influential buildings in this group: the 725/1325 Friday
mosque a t the port of Cambay and the tomb complex of
c \ Jmar a l -Kazaruni (d . 734/1333) to i t s south . The F riday
mos que and Kazaruni tomb complex would undo ubt
edly be ranked as except ional s t ruc tures whatever the ir
place or period. Their monumenta l i ty , imaginat ion and
the sheer skill of their construction and decoration place
them alongside some of the finest buildings in the
Islamic world and for this alone a fresh publication is
long overdue. The two structures are also exceptional for
the breadth of sources they gather together, a breadth
that reflects Cambay's position at the interface between
Sul tanate northern India and the wes tern Indian Ocean.
Pe rha ps a s a c ons e que nc e o f th i s ma ny e l e me n t s ,
especially those of the tomb complex, are innovative and
technically experimental. All these qualities helped to
118 South Asian Studies Ί 7
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"A COLLECTION OF MERITS..."
H S M F
4. View o f the prayer hall facade, Friday mosque, Cambay, including the small chattri at the centre of the c ourtya rd. (Courtesy of the AIIS, Centre
for Ar t and Archaeology, New Delhi.)
5. View of the nor th east entrance, Friday mosque, Cambay. with the
725/1325 foundation inscription and traces of the pilasters of the
original p orch.
es tablish the Friday mosque and Kazaruni tom b complex
at Cam bay as fund ame nta l mo dels for the la te r
architecture of the Sultans of Gujarat during the 15th and
16th centuries.
This said, the complexity of each structure, and of
their relationship to each other, makes their discussion
long and difficult. On the one hand, they are two
distinct s tructures in terms of their function, phases of
construction, patrons and architectural sources, and so
might be discussed in separate articles. On the otherhand, they are physically interlinked to the extent that it
is impossible to discuss one without the other. Not only
do the two bui ldings share many cons truc t ional and
stylistic details but the tomb complex is built against the
entire length of the mosque's south wall, and the two are
l inked in terna l ly by numerous windows and connect ing
doorways (Figs. 2 & 3). The final effect is of a single
complex and indeed Western t rave l le rs - who provide
our only early descriptions of these two buildings - have
often treated them as a single structure, referring to both
either as a tomb or as a mosque. The pattern of their
subsequent influence within Gujarat also suggests that
they were seen as a single complex by the local Muslim
c ommuni t i e s .
P A R T I
THE STRUCTURES
Since the Friday mosque and Kazaruni tomb complex
have not been published substantially since 1896, whenthey were documented by James Burgess , 4 this article
be g ins w i th a more e x te ns ive de s c r ip t ion a nd a
reconstruction of the two structures.
THE FRIDAY MOSQUE AND ITS PATRON
The Friday mosque
The Friday mosque is a hypos tyle or Arab plan mosque ,
cons is t ing of a centra l courtyard su rrou nde d by the main
prayer ha l l on the wes t s ide and colonnades on the
rem ainin g three side s (Fig. 2). The m osq ue is an im
pos ing s t ruc ture meas uring appro ximate ly 64.5 by 60meters, or 212 by 197 feet, externally. In a sophisticated
and inspired compositional touch, the centre of the
mosque courtyard is marked by a smal l orna te ly carved
chattri or pavi l ion (Fig . 4) . Cons truc t ion throu ghou t the
mo squ e is ent i re ly in s tone and m ainly t rabea te ,
employing corbel led domes and arches . Prac t ica l ly a l l
the s tone employed in the mosque must have come from
Cambay 's Ja in and Hindu temples but th is spol ia is
generally reused discreetly.
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ELIZABETH LAMBOURN
6. View of the interior of the sanctuary, Friday mosque. Cambay,
showing the use of grey stone for the pillars around the central
mihrab.
An inscr ip t ion over the n o r th ern en t r an ce of the
m o sq u e r eco rd s its fo u n d a t io n on 18 Mulmrram 725
eq u iv a l en t to 4 January 1325, under the p a t ro n ag e of
Daw latshah M uha mm ad al -But ihar i (Fig . 5 ) . The ful l tex t
of the inscr ip t ion runs as follows (tran slation from
Mah d i Hu sa in ' s ed i t i o n of the inscr ip t ion) .6
^ j J u l j u v - . U ^ ^ I U t J U j I ^ . I il\p\j*Ji1*Jl *Λ-Η jfrJt JA AJ I J^ -O )
J J U I J - U - I jj ; t_ l lU»cy ;* iU1 j .a l l li i i , l f U» fcAI^U-J J l l l i - .LUi i^ iu i
^ UJ IjlU LJ l J i t y i j u ; 4 l ILJL i . * - / j4L iJ j *« lJ l * : iUJL . u e ) b -1 > . i l i ' j iA ; - # ; * ; jU£ j (T )
•LLJJJ jLru iiHtjJA j f l j j l JLJ^S\ JUJI ;LUL. } SL· M M jlUuJI lUlU: Λ .Li JLJJ JSLJI
^ U > _ - j l > C r l * 1 J J - i L . r j * l ^ ^ i i l > . L U I t > a ) i J * < l ^ i l >* ► J jWj t * JUrf
(Line 1) In the n a m e of G o d , the C ompa s s iona te ,
the Merciful. And the places of w o r s h i p are for Allah
alone so invoke no-one e lse bes ides Al lah.7
And theProphet , peace be u p o n him, s a ys " Who e ve r bu i ld s a
m o s q u e for Al lah, even tho ugh it be as small as the
dwe l l ing of a part ridg e, Allah will build for h im a house
in paradise" .8 This is by one who has been rightly guided
and he lped by Him. This b lessed Friday mosq ue and its
bui lding were cons truc ted
(Line 2) whol ly and comple te ly , out of his own
money from what Al lah had given him th rough His
grace and benevolence , mere ly for the sake of Allah the
Exal ted, during the reign of the learned and just S ultan
M uha mma d Sha h s on of Tughluq Shah the Sul tan - ma y
Allah perpe tua te his dom inion and po wer - by the weak
crea ture , expectant of the mercy of Al lah the Exalted,Da wla t s ha h M uha mma d a l -B u t iha r i9 , may Allah enable
him to achieve his object. And that too k plac e on the
eighteenth of Mulmrram in the year seven hun dred and
twenty five.10
The main prayer ha l l has a re la t ive ly s im ple
internal articulation of fourteen large dom es of equa l size
and he ight , wi th a ra ised and screened pray er area or
muluk khanah, l i te ra l ly "king 's chamber" , at e i ther end
7. View of th e south western muluk khanah Friday mosque, Cambay.
(Fig. 7). The precise uses of muluk khanahs in India have
yet to be fully explored and they ar e often refer red to as
wome n ' s ga l l e r i e s . Howe ve r , one of the earliest
explanat ions of th is fea ture a ppea rs in the me moi r s ofthe Mughal Emperor Jahangir on the occasion of a visit
to the Friday M osque at A h m e d a b a d w h e r e he explains
that these shall nishin, called muluk khanah in Gujarat,
were built to shield the King when he attended Friday or
' Id prayers on account of the c rowding of the people"
(Jahangir, 1909-14, p. 425). This expla nation sugges ts that
they were in fact maqsurahs.
The mos que has a total of five mihrabs, three
princ ipa l mihrabs in the main prayer hall and two simpler
mihrabs in each of the muluk khanahs (Fig. 8). Tine three
princ ipa l mihrabs are also "reflected" on the exterior of
th e qiblah wal l, mark ed by three projecting semi-circular
but t resses (Fig. 9). As befits a jami' or congregationalm o s q u e it is provided with a minbar or pulpi t for the
del ivery of the khutbah or s e rmon on Fridays and other
important days s i tua ted jus t to the north of the central
mihrab and built like this entirely in whi te marble (Fig.
10).n Probably the most distinctive feature of the m osque
is the solid masonry screen with arched openings that is
built across the fagade of the pra yer hall, effectively
ma s k ing its t rabeate cons truc t ion. A n u m b e r of arched
openings within the screen allow a g l imps e of the hall
b e h i n d , and the centra l a rch is e m p h a s i s e d by
being wid er and hig her than its neig hbo urs (Figs. 4). The
m o s q u e is not provided with a tow er minaret, instead
stairways within the fagade screen give access to the roofof the mosque from where the call to prayer wou ld have
been made.
The mos que has a total of five entrances, one on
the east, on axis with the centre of the qiblali wall (Fig. 3)
and two entrances each on the north and south sides, one
permitting access directly into the pray er hall of the
mosque, jus t beneath the muluk khanahs (Fig. 11), the
other leading s t ra ight in to the courtyard . The princ ipa l
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"A COLLECTION OF MERITS.
Above:
8. Small marble mihrab in the north -weste rn muluk khanah Friday
mosque. Cambay.
Top right:
9. The back of the qiblah wall o f the Friday mo sque, Cambay, showing
the use of different coloured stones in the construction of the
mihrab projections.
Below
10. View of the unfinished or restored marble minbar Friday mosque,
Cambay.
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ACOLLECTION OF MERITS...
12. Early 13th century corbelled d ome reused in the Friday mosque. Cambay. (Courte sy o f the A IIS. Cen tre for A rt and A rchaeology, Ne w Delhi.)
s id e wh ich ap p ear s t o co r r esp o n d to o u r Tu g h lu q
mo sque . Delia Valle desc ribes a Mes chita, or Tem ple of
the Mahometans, whereunto there i s cont inual ly a great
concourse of people wi th r id icu lous and fool ish
devot ions, no t merely Mahometans but l ikewise Gent i les
[Hindus] . In the s t reet before the Gate many persons
si t t ing on the ground asked Alms, to whom the passers-
by cast, some Rice, others certain other corn, but no
Mo ney (della Valle, 1892, p. 69).15
Although the mosque appears to have fal len in to
disrepair by the later 17th century - since de Thevenot
noted that the sepulc hre (mea ning both the Fr iday
mosq ue and tomb complex) wa s kept in bad repai r
when he visited Cambay in 1667-68 (de Thevenot, 1949,
p. 18) - there is no reason to suppose that i t ceased to be
used. At some stage before the late 18th century the
whi te marble paving of the mosque was also removed
(Forbes, 1834, p. 319). It also seems probable that the
mosque suffered some st ructural damage dur ing the
great earthquake that shook Gujarat and Kutch in 1819
(Summers, 1854, p . 21) and substan t ial ly damaged the
Kazaruni complex . The damage to the nor th en t rance
may date to this t ime (Fig. 5), as well as that to thecusped arch that is inserted within the central arch of the
prayer hal l faςade, apparent ly to suppor t the clerestory
jalis (Fig. 4). A description of the mosque in the mid-19th
cen tu ry , t h o u g h h eav y wi th ro m an t i c o v er to n es ,
confirms its extrem e dilap idatio n: the exterior exhibits
p a lp ab l e ev id en ce o f r ap id an n ih i l a t i o n ; an d t h e
decaying co lonnades, the in jured arches - indeed every
indicat ion of age and ru in are qui te unmistakable wi th
the interior (Briggs, 1849, pp . 161-62). Ho we ver, i t
appears to have cont inued in use in to the late 19 th
century s ince a second inscr ip t ion near the mosque 's
wate r tank me nt ions the const ruct ion of the cis tern wi th
a roof carried out through the efforts of the local
M usl im s in 1297/1879-80 (AR1E, 1956-57, D 43).16
Dawlatshah Muhammad al -Butihari
Thanks to the research of Mahdi Husain , the Dawlatshah
Muhammad al -But ihar i o f the foundat ion inscr ip t ion has
been ident if ied wi th a cer tain Daw latshah Mu ham ma d
o r Mal ik Dawla t sh ah m en t io n ed i n co n t em p o rary
histories as one of the main amirs of the Tughluq period
(Mahdi Husain, 1957-58, pp. 29-34). 'Isami records that
he served on the mi l i tary expedi t ion of Ghiyath al -Din
Tug hluq to Lak hna ut i (c . 1324) and a lso serv ed
M u h a m m ad b in Tu g h lu q Sh ah d u r in g t h e Mu l t an
expedi t ion of 730/1330-31 , whe re he com ma nde d the
r ight wing dur ing the bat t le of Abohar (Mahdi Husain ,
1957-58 , p . 30) . Accord ing to Barani at th is t ime
Dawla t sh ah Mu h am m ad h e ld t h e p o s t o f Aklwr Bek o r
Super in tendent of the Royal S tab le. Thanks to Ibn
Bat tu t a we k n o w th a t Dawla t sh ah Mu h am m ad d i ed
d u r in g Mu h am m ad b in Tu g h lu q ' s cam p aig n i n Malab ar ,
succumbing to the p lague in Tel ingana in 735/1335
(Ma hdi H usa in, 1957-58, p. 30). Alt hou gh n one of these
s o u r c e s g i v e D a w l a t s h a h M u h a m m a d ' s nisbah,17 a l-
But ihar i , o r ment ion any par t icu lar involvement wi th
Gujarat , Mahdi Husain 's ident i f icat ion appears to be
correct s ince the names and dates of the two characters
correspond closely.
Al though contemporary sources do not ment ion
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I I , Ι /Λ Ι '. Ι I I I I A M B O U K N
13. View of the interio r of al-Kazaruni's mausoleum w ith his cenotaph, facing towards the south doorway, Kazaruni complex, Cambay.
Dawla t sh ah Mu h am m ad a l -Bu t ih a r i ' s i n v o lv em en t i n
Gujarat , a number of surv iv ing inscr ip t ions ind icate that
he had s t rong l inks wi th the por ts of Gujarat dur ing the
1320s. Al-Bu t ihar i i s me nt ion ed in three o ther
inscr ip t ions f rom the nearby por t o f Bharuch: h is name
appears in the foundat ion inscr ip t ion of the Fr iday
mos que at Bharuch , dated 721/13 21, in anothe r m osqu e
foundat ion inscr ip t ion of 722/1322,
18
and finally on thefoundat ion inscr ip t ion of the por t ' s namaz garh (an open
area for communal prayer on special occasions in the
Mu s l im ca l en d ar ) wh ich i s d a t ed 7 2 6 /1 3 2 6 . 1M
Unfortunately, the first two inscriptions are so badly
damaged that we cannot speci fy the ro le he p layed in
these pro jects . He may have been the main pat ron of
these bui ld ings or h is name may feature in these
inscriptions simply because he held an official post in
Gujarat and i t was customary to include the names of
importan t local o ff icials in such inscr ip t ions. The
importan t po in t i s that he was al ready in Gujarat at th is
period and apparently in an official capacity. Fortunately,
the third inscription on the minbar or pulpit of the namazgarh at Bharuch is complete. I t records al -But ihar i ' s
patronage of the structure in 726/1326 - only a year after
the Fr iday mosque at Cambay - and paid for once again
out of h is personal funds. The ment ion of al -But ihar i ' s
name in four inscriptions from these two sites - in two
cases as the pat ron of major rel ig ious s t ructures -
demonst rates that he had close, and very probably
official , t ies to the ports of western India.
The existence of these inscriptions in no way
inval idates the ident i f icat ion made by Mahdi Husain .
14th century histories do not pretend to the kind of
b iographical detai l found, for example, in Mughal
b iographical d ict ionar ies , thei r fai lure to ment ion
Da wlatsh ah M uh am ma d 's career in Gujarat is therefore
not proof that he was never posted there. Equally, and for
r easo n s t h a t h av e y e t t o b e ex p l a in ed , t h e nisbah(al - )But ihar i may only have been used or known in
Gujarat . Indeed , in some cases , detai l s f rom the
inscriptions and texts actually reinforce one another. The
namaz garh inscription furnishes new official t i t les which
a p p e a r to c o n fi r m D a w l a t s h a h M u h a m m a d ' s i n
volvement in the Lakhnaut i campaign as ment ioned bycIsami. In this text al-Butihari is referred to as Malik al-
Sharq Fakhr al-Dawlah wa al-Din Dawlatshah Muhamm ad
Butihari, li terally, King of the East, Pride of the State and
Rel ig ion , Dawlatshah Muhammad But ihar i . One may
wonder whether the new t i t le Malik al-Sharq or King of
th e Eas t was award ed as a r esu l t o f Dawla t sh ah
Mu h am m a d ' s p a r t i c ip a ti o n i n th e Lak h n au t i cam p aig n .On e d e t a i l o f Dawla t sh ah Mu h am m ad ' s ca ree r
may provide a clue to his posting in the ports of Gujarat.
Barani ment ions the fact that Dawlatshah Muhammad
held the post of Akhur Bek or Supe r in tend ent of the Royal
Stab le around 1330 and th is in format ion suggests that he
may have had a par t icu lar ly good knowledge of horses .
As Simon Digby 's s tudy on war horses and elephants in
India has shown, India imported large numbers of
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"A COLLECTION OF ME RITS..."
14. V iew of the main, south facade of the Kazarun i complex showing
the entrance portal or pishtaq.
horses to serve in the cavalry. Many were imported by
sea from the Persian Gulf, Arabian Peninsula and Iran,
and landed at the western seaports (Digby, 1971 p. 1). A
related phenomenon, that has received far less attention,
is the appointm ent of wel l -connected horse me rchants asofficials in the ports or states which imported these
horses . Probably the bes t known example is the
connect ions be tween the Pandyan rulers of Madura i and
the al-Tibi merchant family who ruled the coasts of Fars
and its is lands during the late 13th and early 14th
centuries. The Pandy a imp orted alm ost 1,500 horses
annually from the Tibis alone and for several decades,
until the Khalji conquest of Ma'bar, members of the Tibi
family were appointed as viziers to the Pandyas and as
gove rnor s of their three main port s (Aubin, 1953, pp . 89-
99; Shokoohy, 1991, p. 32). Alth oug h d ata is lacking for
wes tern India during the Tughluq period, we know tha t
in the Mughal period horse traders were quite often
appointed to admin is te r or govern ports there , exploi t ing
the ir connect ions and the ir expert ise in horses . In
1056/1646, for example, the Iranian merchant and horse
trader cAli Akbar Is fahani was appointed by Shah Jahan
to administer the ports of Surat and Cambay on the basis
that "since [he] is a merchant and has knowledge of
judging horses and jewels, i t is possible that he will be
able to administer ports in an efficient manner" (Khan,
1965, p. 196).20 The logic of this system sugg ests th at it
may well have been in place long before the Mughal
period and we might specula te tha t , whi ls t Dawla tshah
Muhammad's mil i ta ry career makes i t unl ike ly tha t hewas himself a horse merchant, he may well have been
appointed to Bharuch and Cam bay in connection w ith
the procurement of horses for the Tughluq Sultans.
THE KAZARUNI TOM B COMPLEX
The Friday mosque cannot be discussed independent ly
from the tomb comple x that flanks its entire sou ther n
side (Figs. 2 & 3). The two cenotaphs of cUmar a l -
15. View of the main entrance portal or pishtaq south facade of the
Kazaruni complex. (Courtesy o f the AIIS, Centre for Ar t and
Archaeology, New Delhi.)
Kazaruni (d . 734/1333) and his wife Bibi Fa t imah
(d. 784/1382) at the centre of the complex are among the
bes t publ ished Is lamic monuments a t Cambay 21 yet the
complex tha t houses them has never been ful ly s tudied.
Al-Kazaruni 's grave is usual ly referred to as be ing
situated in his mausoleum, but this is only the central
part of a t r ipar t i te complex compris ing a separa te
multifunctional structure - definitely in part a mosque -
to the west, and a large courtyard area on the east.
T h e m a u s o l e u m an d pishtaq
The la rges t e lement of the tomb complex is the
mausoleum tha t houses the graves of cUmar a l -Kazaruni
and his wife (Fig. 13). This m aus ole um is a large and
c omple x s t ruc tu re , me a s u r ing a pprox ima te ly 15 ,5
metres, or 51 feet, at i ts widest (east to west), and
conceived on three or perhaps even four s toreys . At
floor-level are the two cenotaphs set within an octagonal
mausoleum, with a first floor gallery or above this from
which one can look down onto the cenotaphs be low and
out over the surrou ndin g landscap e . A low solid ra i l ing
marks the outer edge of the gallery (Fig. 13). This
mausoleum is fronted on the south by a large portal, in
Pers ian pishtaq (Figs. 14 & 15). Pishtaq literally m eans
"the arch in front," and the portal consists of a large
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ELIZABETH LAMBOURN
rectangular f ront , ra ised above the leve l of the
surrounding wal ls and s t ruc tures , and with a deep arch
at its centre. Steps from street level lead up and back to
the ac tua l doorway to the mausoleum. The dome and i ts
portal are perfectly integrated with a small loggia or
balcony in the upper half of the portal that both
continues the gallery level of the mausoleum and affords
a view out over the port area and the Gulf of Cambay
(Figs. 15 & 16). Tucked with in th e massiv e sides of theportal are two spiral s taircases that lead from ground
level up to the first floor gallery and then up again to the
roof level of the pishtaq (Figs. 2 & 17). The whole
structure of the Friday mosque and the tomb complex sit
upon a high masonry pl in th tha t var ies in he ight
be tween one and two meters . I t i s h ighes t on the
southern and western sides of the complex and it seems
likely that the Kazaruni burial crypt lies here, exactly
beneath the floor-level cenotaphs that indicate the burial
spot.22 This crypt w ould constitu te the fourth storey of
the ma us o le um.
The mau soleum was origina l ly covered by a dome,
but "in June 1819, the largest and loftiest dome, under
which the remains of the founder a re entombed, was
thrown down by a severe shock of an ear thquake , the
same which caused the devas ta t ions in Cutch, and
thro ug hou t Gu jarat" (Sum mer s, 1854, p. 21) (Fig. 18). The
quantity of stone rubble at the site certainly seems to
confirm that the dome was of stone. The extra pillars
added to but t ress the unsupported wes tern and eas tern
sides of the octagon also indicate worries about the lat
eral thrust of an unusually large and very heavy dome.
The inner diameter of the octagon is just under 12
m (39 ft), and there seems litt le doubt that, at the period
Above
16. View of the interior of the balcony within the pishtaq Kazaruni
complex.
Below
17. View of the juncture of the mausoleum and pishtaq from the east
courtya rd, and showing the doorways giv ing access to the
staircases within each wing of the pishtaq Kazaruni complex.
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A COLLECTION OF MERITS..."
n^gmiunntv
18. View of the lost dome, mausoleum, Kazaruni complex.
of its construction, the stone dome over al-Kazaruni 'smausoleum was the largest ever built in western India.
By contrast, the dom es in the adjacent F riday m osq ue all
me asure ap prox imate ly 5.5 m (18 ft) in diameter, an
average size for domes in the 14th century Islamic
archi tec ture of wes tern India . Stone domes of th is
diameter appeared only in the mid-15th century, as in the
mauso leum of Ahm ad Shah I a t Ah med abad and in tha t
of Shaykh Ahmad Khatu at Sarkhej, but even in these
instances they cover single-storey structures and are
solidly buttressed by a crown of smaller domes. 23 A l-
Ka z a run i ' s ma us o le um wa s a t ru ly e xpe r ime n ta l
structure, worthy of the architectural rivalry described
by Ibn Battuta.
The paired minarets
The dome of al-Kazaruni 's mausoleum is not the only part
of th is complex to have been los t through na tura l
disasters. A description of the Friday mosq ue and tomb
complex by James Forbes at the end of the 18th century
mentions that "over the south entrance of the tomb
complex was a handsom e minare t ; it s compan ion having
been destroyed by lightning, was never replaced" (Forbes,
1813, vol. II, p. 17). Th e accuracy of Forbe s' rem ark is
borne out by an accompanying panoramic ske tch, drawn
in 1772, which sho ws the sout hern face of the K azaruni
tomb complex with its dom ed m ausol eum and the
surviving eas tern minare t above the pishtaq (Fig. 19).24 The
19. View of Cambay, from the sou th, showing one of the tw o original m inarets atop the tom b complex's entrance gateway. Engraved by J. Shury
fro m an origina l sketch by James Forbes in 772 AD . (From Forbes, 1834) (Photograph Cou rtesy of the Yale Center for British Ar t. New Haven.)
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ELIZABETII LAMBOURN
20 . V iew of the western p ortio n of the Kazaruni complex, from the
courtyard of the tomb complex.
22 . Mihrab in the wes tern por t ion of the Kazaruni complex .
(Courtes y of the AIIS, Cen tre for A rt and Archaeology, New
Delhi.)
caption that accompanies the plate reads: "In the centre is
the Jum ma M usjid and fallen Minar, me ntio ned in the
memoirs"(Forbes, 1813, vol. IV, p. 364). Forbes ' remark
and ske tch es tabl ish tha t the entrance to a l -Kazaruni 's
mausoleum was origina l ly topped by a pa ir of tower
minare ts . Al though we do not know exact ly when the
first (western) minaret fell , this appears to have occurred
reiat'we\y eariy, since the earty Y7tYi cen tury acco unt oi
William Finch speaks of "a watch-tower of an exceeding
21 . Exterior v iew of the western por tion of the Kazaruni complex, a
multi-functional area including a small mosque.
height " near the sea-shore at Cambay which seems to
corre spon d to the surv iving mina ret (Finch, 1921, p. 174).
The remaining minare t mus t have col lapsed, a long with
the mausoleum dome, in the 1819 earthquake .It is difficult to know how far to trust Forbes'
sketch for a reconstruction of the minarets , s ince they are
only details in a panoramic view. Nevertheless, they
appear to have been circular and the two balconies
indicated in the sketch suggest that they had internal
staircases that continued from the circular staircase
within each wing of the pishtaq. The presence of these
minarets explains the extraordinary thickness of the
portal 's walls , but most importantly indicates that the
pair of minarets were part of the original design of the
complex rather than a later addition. As far as can be
judged from the sketch they were substantial s tructures,
and at least doubled the height of the pishtaq, whichwould suggest a height of at least 12m (40 ft) from roof
level. Forbes ' sketch gives no idea of the material used to
construct these two minarets . Stone is a strong possibility
(the later 15th century minarets of Ahmedabad are of
stone) and might explain the extreme thickness of the
pishtaq's wa l l s . Howe ve r , t he a bunda nc e o f b r i c k
construction in the central plain of Gujarat means that
we cannot rule out this possibility, especially as the
immedia te models for these minare ts , the 14th century
minarets of Il-Khanid Iran, were brick structures (see
later discussion).
Like the adjacent mosque the complex has been
discreetly restored over time. We have no information on
the damage caused by the collapse of the first minaret
after the lightning strike. However, the collapse of the
mausoleum's dome and the remaining minare t in 1819
would expla in two prominent a reas of rebui lding within
the tomb complex. The loss of a portion of the eastern
wall, as show n on B urgess ' g rou nd plan of 1896 (Fig. 2),
w ou ld b e consisten t wvtb. the collapse oi a tall s tructu re
such as the eastern minaret. The collapse of either the
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"A COLLECTION OF MERITS..."
23 . Carved doorframe connecting the main sanctuary of the Friday
mosque and the western p ortio n of the Kazaruni complex, seen
from the side of the Kazaruni complex.
dome or the minaret would also explain the 19th century
restorations of the balcony within the entrance gateway
(Fig. 15). A rosette carved on the underside of the
pishtaq's ba lcony displays evident ly 19th century
features: for example, the design of its flowers can be
para l le led with carving on the contemporary heads tones
of the Nawabs of Cambay, suggesting that this whole
area was rebuilt and recarved at this time. The Kazaruni
tom b complex is s t il l one of the mos t imp ress iv e
comp lexes of its genre in Gujarat, an d m ust hav e been
even more so before the lightning strike and earthquake
destroyed this magnificent entrance.
The funerary mosque and eastern courtyard
The western end of the complex is occupied by a mosque
cons is t ing of four domed bays with an L-shaped
walkway running along the east and south sides (Figs. 20
& 21). Like the mausoleum, this structure is a far more
complex space than one would initially imagine from the
publ ished ground plans , be ing bui l t on two s toreys and
provided with a walkway, and numerous s ta i rcases and
24 . Raised muluk khanah in the western portion of the Kazaruni
complex.
25 . L-shaped walkway in the western part of the Kazaruni tomb
complex, seen from the west looking towards the mausoleum.
doorways that tie it to the adjoining Friday mosque and
link it to the exterior. The easiest area to define and
identify is un de r the nor th-w ester n of the four do mes ,
since a large white marble mihrab indicates that th is was
used for prayer, more specifically as a funerary chapel
(Fig. 22). But this space also functions as a transition
between the tomb complex and the prayer ha l l of the
Friday mosque , s ince a doorway connects the two (Fig .
23). The space und er the south-w es tern do me appe ars to
have been conceived as a minia ture muluk khanah, since
the upper half of this bay is divided by jali screens, in a
fashion similar to the separation of the muluk khanahs in
the main mo squ e, tho ug h it now lacks its floor (Fig. 24).Access to this muluk khanah is provided by a raised
L-shaped walkway tha t runs a long the southern and
eastern sides of this part of the complex and connects to
the staircases in the pishtaq and also to a separate small
do orw ay in the south facade of the com plex (Fig. 25).
Traces of dowling a long the edges of the walkway
suggest that this was originally screened off by jalis . The
provision of separate access to this area may confirm that
it was intended to provide a secluded place for prayer.
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ELIZABETH LAMBOURN
To the eas t of a l -Kazaruni 's mausoleum is a la rge
empty courtyard comple te ly overgrown and f i l led with
rubble , presumably from the col lapse of the mauso
leum 's dom e and the remainin g minare t (Fig . 2) . There is
no evidence to sugges t tha t th is a rea ever housed any
s truc tures ; whi ls t the eas t wal l was rebui l t somet ime
after 1886, the intact south wall shows no traces of
bond in g w i th o the r s t ruc tu re s . A numbe r o f minor
graves here , and in the second smal l courtyar d be tw een
the mausoleum and the funerary mosque , a re evidence
that these areas were used for later burials , possibly for
family members , as was common throughout the Is lamic
world . The French t ravel le r de Thevenot , who vis i ted
Cam bay in 1665, men t ioned th a t in the Friday mos que
" there are many Sepulchres of Princes there a lso" , a
de s c r ip t ion tha t c o r re s ponds we l l t o the e a s t e rn
courtyard of the tomb complex and the buria ls there (de
Thev enot, 1949, p. 18).
The Kazaruni complex - phases of construction and
patronage
Unlike the Friday mosque the Kazaruni tomb complex
lacks any foundat ion inscr ipt ion indica t ing i ts pa tron
and the date of it construction, and it is only the graves
of a l -Kazaruni and his wife a t the heart of the
ma us o le um tha t l e a d to the a s s umpt ion tha t t h i s
complex was purpose-bui l t for h im. I t i s not c lear
whether the complex was begun by a l -Kazaruni during
his own lifetime, as was often the case in the Islamic
world , or whether i t was cons truc ted pos thumous ly by
members of his family, perhaps by his young wife Bibi
Fatimah. It is even possible to envisage that the complex
was begun by another pa tron and taken over for a l -Kazaruni 's buria l , another prac t ice frequent in the
Is lamic world . Unfortunate ly , exis t ing sources provide
litt le help in clarifying this matter but a few details can
be established.
The Friday mosque and tomb complex have often
been mis taken for a s ingle s t ruc ture , and one may
wo nde r whe ther they were in fac t bui lt as a s ingle projec t
and under a s ingle pa tron, namely a l -But ihari . The
725/1325 foundat ion inscr ipt ion of the Friday mosque a t
Cambay does inc lude a somewhat mys ter ious reference
to the Friday mosque and i ts Hmarat - me a n ing bu i ld ing ,
s t ruc ture or edif ice - a de ta i l tha t points a t leas t
superficially to this possibility. The term cimarat is
regularly used in this sense in Indian Islamic epigraphy,
from the ear ly Sul tanate per iod o nw ards . I t is used e i ther
in association with a specific architectural term, such as
mosque, well or fort, or alone, its meaning inferred from
its location, as on a minaret, a gateway or a mosque. 25
However, outs ide Cambay there a re no examples of the
use of the phrase " the mosque and i ts bui ld ing" . In
Ottoman Turkey the te rm Hmaret referred specifically to a
public kitchen providing food for the needy, but as far as
I know the term is not recorded in this sense in 14th
century India. In fact, i t is highly unlikely that the cimarat
mentioned in this inscription ever referred to a real
structure at all
The foundation text of the 725/1325 mosque is
heavi ly model led on tha t of an ear l ie r Friday mosque
bui l t a t Cambay in 615/1218 (Desa i, 1961, insc.I, pp. 4-7).
The texts of the two Friday mosques share the same
hadiih a nd Qur ' a n ic ve r s e {surah 72, verse 18) and an
almost identical foundation text: "this [blessed]26
Friday
mosque and i ts bui ld ing were cons truc ted whol ly and
completely, out of his own money from what Allah had
given him through His grace and benevolence , mere ly
for the sake of Allah the Exalted ..." . Is lamic inscriptions
in Gujarat regularly copied the text, script and decorative
motifs of earlier local examples. Indeed, the very same
text , inc luding the te rm Hmarat, was incorp ora ted in to
a th i rd mosque inscr ipt ion a t Cam bay in 815/1412 -
demons tra t ion enough of the prac t ice of copying a t
the site (Desai, 1974, insc.III, pp. 5-7). Given this
phe n ome non i t i s h igh ly que s t iona b le whe the r the
Hmarat inclu ded in al-Butih ari 's inscription ever referred
to a real s tructure, let alone to the tomb complex on its
south . Indeed, the phys ica l evidence sugges ts two
separa te bui ld ing campaigns and therefore two dis t inc t
pa trons .
Even without a da ted foundat ion inscr ipt ion there
i s no do ubt th a t the tomb com plex was cons truc ted af te r
the Friday mosque had been subs tant ia l ly comple ted,
and therefore pr obab ly by a different patr on. A clear
break in the masonry bond be tween the two bui ldings on
the exterior of the west and east walls , at the point where
the Friday mosque meets the tomb complex, indica testha t we a re de a l ing w i th two s e pa ra t e pha s e s o f
construction, not a single building project (Fig. 26). The
whole south wall of the mosque (or the north wall of the
tomb complex) provides evidence for the fact that the
complex was bui l t aga ins t the mosque , and not the
reverse . The ma usole um was bui l t on a different mo dule
from the adjacent Friday mosque, with the result that its
pi l la rs in terca la te ra ther c lumsi ly wi th the windows and
doo rw ays of the m osq ue wall (Fig. 2). How ever, the thr ee
exter ior mouldings tha t enc irc le the two s t ruc tures a re
con tin uo us (Fig. 26), and t he bays of the fu nerary
mosque fol low the same module as the Friday mosque
and have s imilar a rchi tec tura l decora t ion ( the mihrab inthe tomb complex is almost identical to those in the
Friday mosque) . This sugges ts tha t , whi ls t the Friday
mosque and tomb complex were not p lanned and bui l t
as a single project, they were constructed in close
sequence . Unt i l a more plaus ible candida te comes to
light, i t is reasonable to assume that the complex was
bui l t to commemorate a l -Kazaruni , and most probably,
after his death. Whilst i t is difficult to estimate
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"A COLLECTION OF ME RITS..."
construction times in medieval India, we do know, for
example that the first phase of the Quwwat al-Islam
mosque in Delhi took six years to complete, being
founded in 587/1191-92 and finished in 592/1197 (Page,
1926, insc.I, p. 29 and insc.lll , p. 29). If the Frid ay mo squ e
at Cambay was founded in 725/1325 one can imagine i t
app roac hin g comple tion in the early 1330s. Given the
break in the bond between the two structures, this might
suggest that the tomb complex was begun shortly after
a l -Kazaruni 's dea th in 734/1333 and perhaps f in ished
towards the end of the 1330s.
cUmar ibn Ahmad al-Kazaruni
The size and sophistication of the complex certainly befit
a character such as al-Kazaruni and the milieu in which
he moved. What scant data there is establishes thatcUmar al-Kazaruni was one of the elite merchants of
India. The nisbah al-Kazar uni is of Iranian orig in a nd
denotes family roots in, or connections with, the town of
Kazarun near Shiraz in southern Iran, and it is clear that
he was one of the many foreign merchants who lived and
traded at Cambay. Like many of the greatest merchants
of the period, al-Kazaruni was also closely involved with
the Tughluq court and the politics of the day. Ibn Battuta
refers to a l -Kazaruni as Malik al-Tujjar or King of
Merchants , whi ls t another inscr ipt ion from Cambay
dated 726/1326 gives him the tit le Malik Muluk al-Tujjar,
an intensive form of the tit le which translates literally as
King of the Kings of Merchants (ARIE, 1956-57, insc. D
52).27 Although the precise history of this ti t le is s til l
obscure , it was an officiaJJy conferred post under the
Tughluq Sultans, s ince we know that a certain Malik
Shihab al-Din Abu Raja was appointed to this post and
a wa rde d the ciqta of Na vsari on the access ion of
Muhammad ibn Tughluq in 725/1325 (Habib & Nizaxni ,
1992, p. 486).2S The ti t le sugges ts tha t incum bents were
respons ible for oversee ing merchants and t rade within
the Sul tanate . The 726/1326 inscr ipt ion from Cambay
suggests that, unless the intensive form of the tit le was
used more as an eulogy than as an official title, al-
Kazaruni succeeded Abu Raja in the post sometime in
1326, but the 'iqta he was awarded is not known.
As Ibn Battuta noticed, the foreign merchants of
Cambay were avid pa trons of a rchi tec ture , and a l -
Kazaruni appears to have been no except ion. "The hou seof Malik al-Tujjar al-Kazaruni with his private mosque
adjacent to it" were among some of the grand buildings
of Cambay singled out by the Moroccan traveler (Ibn
Battuta, 1976, pp. 172-173).29 Anoth er of a l -Kazarun i 's
architectural projects , this time directly related to trade
and the protection of shipping, involved the fortification
and repopulation of the island of Perim, some four miles
off the trans-shipment port of Gogha on the western side
of the Gulf of Cambay (Ibn Battuta, 1976, p. 176).30 The
sca le an d magnif icen ce of h is funerary com plex -
whether started during his lifetime, or after his death by
his entourage -testifies similarly to the level of patronage
he was able to command.
According to Ibn Bat tuta , a l -Kazaruni d ied
unexpectedly in an ambush by Hindu bandi ts as he was
taking the cons iderable tax revenue from his iqtac in
Gujarat to Delhi (Ibn Battuta, 1976, pp. 67-68). Although
local unrest and banditry were common in Gujarat at this
t i me , Ibn Battuta reports the rumour that the attack was
a carefully organised plot by the incumbent vizier,
Khwajah Jahan, who feared that al-Kazaruni had been
appointed to replace him.31 Al though this rumour is
impossible to verify, the fact that it was still talked about
a decade af te r a l -Kazaruni 's dea th indica tes h is impor
tance in the politics of the period. Al-Kazaruni 's murder
a t the hands of Hindu bandi ts a lso appears to have won
him the highest s tatus of Islamic martyrdom, that of
battlefield martyr or shahid al-ma'rakah. The evi denc e for
this comes from his heads tone which carr ies a long
Qur 'anic extrac t (surah 3, verses 169-71) about the first
Musl im martyrs of the ba t t le of Uhud. The verses a re
inscribed just above the text of al-Kazaruni 's epitaph,
and the physical proximity of the two seems intended to
26 . Detai l of the break in the masonry bond between the Friday
mosque and Kazaruni complex on the western qibla wall.
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ELIZABETH LAMBOURN
^ J U M i n ' -" ^ y ι1ι {Τ Γ ι ιΒ « > "<- Ί " " '
27 . View of al-Kazaruni 's cenotaph from the courtyard of the Friday
mosque.
l iken him to these first martyrs. The iconography of
ma rtyr dom is con t inue d in the actual form of h is
headstone, which is topped by a miniature p i l lar , a formused throughout Gujarat to denote a martyr 's g rave.32
The text of his epitaph refers to him grandly by the
p o s th u m o u s t i t l e s Malik Muluk al-Sharq wa al-Wuzara'
mashhitr al-Arab wa al-cAjam, li terally King of the Kings
of the East and of Ministers, Celebrated in Arabia and
Other Is lamic Countr ies .
Tomb complexe s and the pairing of Friday m osque
and mausoleum
Al-Kazaruni 's g rave complex obviously fo l lows in a
well -estab l ished Is lamic t rad i t ion of mul t i - funct ional
funerary complexes. These could incorporate, besidesth e m au so l eu m , a m o sq u e o r fu n era ry ch ap e l an d
diverse o ther s t ructures such as a madrasah, a khanqah, a
library or even a hospital or an observatory. Unfor
tunately , wi thout the foundat ion inscr ip t ion of the
Kazaruni complex we have lost the precise term or terms
by which i t wa s or ig inal ly know n, and wi th that any f irm
indication of what activit ies were provided for. In spite
of this i t is abundantly clear that i t was a multi-functional
s t ructure wi th provis ion for the main bur ial , subsid iary
burials, prayer, the call to prayer, keeping watch over the
Gulf of Cambay, and no doubt housed many addi t ional
activit ies.
By the 14th century tomb complexes were a
common form in Islamic architecture, from north Africa
and Spain to India in the east . Am ong i ts conte mpora r ies
one might single out the funerary complexes of the
Mamluk Sultans and their nobles in Egypt and Syria, and
those of Il-Khanid Iran, where the Il-Khanid Sultans and
their viziers built a number of extremely large complexes
during the first half of the 14th century. Sultanate India
also had a discreet and very distinct tradition of such
c o m p l e x e s .3 3 Giv en t h e co sm o p o l i t an ch arac t e r o f
Cambay and al -Kazaruni 's mi l ieu , i t i s more than l ikely
that many of these complexes were familiar at first hand
o r t h ro u g h th e acco u n t s o f o th er m erch an t s an d
travel lers . However , the Kazaruni complex does not
appear to follow any one specific geographical tradition.
Most important is the question of the pairing of the
Fr iday mosque and tomb complex . The s t ructures workso well as a who le that i t is easy to overlook how unu sual
this association is. No other Friday mosque in western or
nor thern India has a mausoleum, let a lone a whole tomb
complex, so well integrated into i ts structure, and there
are no Fr iday mosques elsewhere in the Is lamic world
where th is i s found. In India importan t mausolea are
often associated with great Friday mosques, but are
always physical ly separate f rom them. The mausoleum
of I l tu tmish at the Quwwat al - Is lam mosque in Delh i i s
built behind the qiblah wal l , cAla' al-Din Khalji 's funerary
madrasah is built beh ind the qiblah wall of the s am e
mosque. No o ther Tughluq Fr iday mosque in Gujarat
had a ma uso leu m phys ical ly at tach ed to i t. AtAh m ed ab ad th e m au so l eu m o f Ah m ad Sh ah and that of
the female members of his family, the so-called Rani ka
Hazira, are both closely related to his great 827/1424
Friday mosque, bu t are again physical ly separate . Only
at Pandua in Bengal i s the so-cal led Sulayman 's tomb
chamber bui l t against the qiblah wall of the 776/1374-75
Ad in a m o sq u e .
The relat ionship between mosque and tomb at
Cam bay is al l the more unu sual in that the tomb complex
was al lowed to dominate the mosque in many aspects .
Today the Fr iday mosque dominates the tomb complex
in terms of both area an d he ight (Fig. 3), and most
travellers arrive by land and enter the complex via thenorth gateway of the Friday mosque (Fig. 5). However, in
the past the scale of Kazaruni 's dome and the minarets
reversed this balance. As Forbes' sketch shows, i t was the
dome and minarets of the mausoleum, rather than any
element of the mosque, that dominated the Cambay
skyl ine, l i teral ly overshadowing the ad jacent mosque
(Fig. 19). They also challenged the main axes of the
F r id ay m o sq u e , ro b b in g t h e n o r th g a t eway o f its
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A COLLECTION OF MERITS...''
importance and estab l ish ing the southern en t rance - v ia
the tomb comp lex - as the pr incipa l po in t o f en t ry . Eve n
today , as one en ters the mosque through the nor th
gateway it is impossib le not to be drawn across the
cour tyard towards the funerary complex on the south
side, s ince al -Kazaruni 's cenotaph is s i ted d i rect ly
o p p o s i t e t h e n o r th en t r an ce , g l im p sed t h o u g h th e
southern door wa y (Fig . 27).The closest paral lel for the physical relat ionship
an d b a l an ce o f t h e F r id ay m o sq u e an d Kazaru n i
complex , though by no m eans a d i rect source, app ears to
be in 13th century Anato l ia . Here Fr iday mosques were
somet imes associated wi th char i tab le inst i tu t ions, the
var ious par ts being physical ly cont iguous and of ten
equal ly balanced . For example, the Fr iday mosque at
Divrigi (626/1228-29) has a hospital attached to i ts qiblah
wall ; whi ls t the Khwand Khatun complex at Kayser i
(635/1237-38) comprised a Fr iday mosque, a madrasah, a
b a th an d a m au so l eu m . 3 4
At such a distance in t ime it is difficult to explain
the prominence of al -Kazaruni 's tomb complex and i t sunique in tegrat ion wi th the Fr iday mosque. Perhaps
only his status as a battlefield martyr is sufficient to
explain th is . The associat ion of the two st ruc tures created
a major rel ig ious cent re - a Fr iday mosque and a
martyr 's shr ine - a t the very hear t o f the por t . At the
very southern edge of the city, facing onto the port area,
these were the f i rs t major s t ructures encountered by any
person arr iv ing at Cambay, a 14 th century precursor of
Bo m b ay ' s Ga teway o f In d i a , t h e so u th ern g a t eway
announced the might of Tughluq India.
Though we know noth ing of the or ig inal 14 th
century environment wi th in which these bui ld ings were
placed , la ter descr ip t ions ind icate that they were at the
hear t of a larger landscape d an d bui l t seafront deve loped
by the Sultans of Gujarat. 33 The ear ly 17th century
descr ip t ions of the mosque and tomb complex by del la
Valle make clear that both structures were sti l l busily
frequented a nd we re close to at least one o ther imp osing
m au so l eu m , 36 as wel l as a large talav or tank (described
as a great P iscina or Lake ) . Cont iguo us wi th th is w as a
smal l gard en som et ime s belonging to the k ings of
Gu zara t , ad o rn ed wi th ru n n in g wate r wh ich a t t h e
entrance falls from a great Kiosck, or cover'd place to
kee p it coo l (della Valle, 1892, pp . 68-69).
P A R T I I
K H A L J I A R C H I T E C T U R E I N D E L H I A N D T H E
S O U R C E S O F T H E C A M B AY F R ID A Y M O S Q U E
Cambay 's Fr iday mosque has received l i t t le at ten t ion
since it was first published over a century ago by
Burgess . The general pauci ty of research in to Indian
Islamic architecture may be partly to blame, but i t is also
true that the mosque lulls the visitor into a false sense of
familiarity. To the visitor fresh from the Quwwat al-Islam
mos que in Delh i , o r the Arh a ' i d in ka Jhom pra m osqu e at
Ajmer, the mosque provides an immediately recog
nisable enviro nm ent , a hypos ty le p lan mo sque bui l t in
spol iated s tone wi th an arched fa?ade screen across
i t s t rabeate prayer hal l (F ig . 3 ) . One would only need to
add a programme of Is lamic inscr ip t ions and a minaret -a second Qutb Minar , o r perhaps a pai r o f pseudo-
minarets as at Ajmer - and the resemblance would be
complete. I t i s easy to forget the hundred years and
thousand k i lometres that separate these s t ructures .
The Fr iday mos que at Ca mba y cer tain ly bears l i tt le
r esem b lan ce t o co n t em p o rary T u g h lu q F r id ay m o sq u es
in Delh i . Though the Fr iday mosque at Tughluqabad is
only a ru in i t is c lear that i t had a hyposty le p lan mos que,
apparent ly wi thout a screen fagade, and was bui l t f rom
ashlar faced rubble, wi th the typ ical Tughluq bat tered
walls, influenced by the brick architecture of Multan. But
how and why does i t fo l low these ear ly Sul tanate
m o d e l s?
Po s t - co n q u es t m o sq u es an d p ara l l e l s wi th t h e
Q u w w a t a l - I s l a m m o s q u e
An th o n y Welch an d Ho w ard Cran e h av e a l r ead y
su g g es t ed t h a t p ro v in c i a l Mu s l im s ty l es u n d er t h e
Tughlu qs we re set more by the ghazi ideal and the
avai lab i li ty of local mate r ials than the capi tal mo de
(Welch and Cran e, 1983, p . 125), p resum ably an al lusion
to the pract ice of bu i ld ing ear ly mosques f rom temple
spol ia . Cer tain aspects of the Cambay Fr iday mosque
might indeed class i t wi th th is type.
The type of mosque to which Welch and Crane
appear to refer is not specifically Tughluq, but goes back
to the very first mosques built in India after the Ghurid
conquest . As the foundat ion inscr ip t ions on the Delh i
and Ajmer mosques testify, in their first phases these
bui ld ings were s imple hyposty le s t ructures wi th open
trabeate prayer hal l s . The Delh i mosque was founded in
587/1191-92 and finished in 592/1197, but the faςade
screen was only completed in 594/1199 (Page, 1926
insc.IV, pp. 29-30), almost two years after the main body
of the mosque - enough of a delay to suggest that the
screen was an af ter thought . At Ajmer the main mosque
was completed in 595/1199, bu t here i t was anotherthirty years before the prayer hall was given a fagade
screen b y Su l t an I l t u tm i sh i n a ro u n d 6 2 7 /1 2 2 9 -3 0
(Horovitz, 1911-12, insc.XXXII, p. 30). India is peppered
with mosques of th is type, marking the ebb and f low of
Mu s l im co n t ro l o v er t h e cen tu r i es . Th e s im p les t
examples of ten have only an open t rabeate prayer hal l ,
wi thout even s ide arcades or a cen t ral cour tyard , and are
assembled f rom temple spolia. Ma ny have not been
publ ished , whi le o thers no longer surv iv ing can be
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ELIZABETH LAMBOURN
traced through remarks in epigraphic publ ica t ions and
archaeological reports .
Severa l hypos tyle mosques of the ear ly 13th
century have survi ved in Rajasthan: the Shah i Masjid at
Khatu, probably da ted 5 99/1203 (Shokoohy, 1993, pp .
107-10) , the Chauras i K hamba mo sque a t Kaman a nd the
Ukha Mandir mosque at Bayana (both c. 1206 and 1210
AD) (Shokoohy, 1987). The Qazi mosque at Bayana
(705/1305), the Dini mosque at Rohtak (708/1309) and
the Ambiya Wali mosque at Fatehpur Sikri (713/1314) all
had simple trabeate prayer halls , built largely from
temple spol ia , wi th a wal led courtyard and somet imes
an entr ance g ate (Y azdani, 1917-18, pp . 19, 21 and 31
respect ive ly) . The Friday mosque a t Dawla tabad in the
Deccan was constructed under Khalji patronage in 1318
AD along this basic model, as was the mosque of Karim
al-Din (c. 1320 AD) at Bijapur (Burton -Page, 1986, p. 62
and Fig. 8). In 725 /1325 the hypo style F riday m osq ue at
Khanapur in Maharashtra was bui l t f rom Hindu spol ia
(Welch & Crane , 1983, p. 26). In Gujarat, the first a nd
larges t mosque of th is type was the Adina mosque bui l t
in 705/1305-06 at Anhilawad Patan by the Alp Khan, the
leader of the conquest and first governor of the region.
Though the mosque was des t royed in the la te 18th
century, descript ion s sugges t tha t it was eno rm ous ,
measuring some 100 by 121 m. (330 by 400 ft .) and
fol lowed a t radi t io nal h ypo s tyle plan (Burgess &
Cousens, 1903, pp. 53-54). There is no evidence that it
had an arched facade screen. The mos qu e wa s
constructed entirely in white marble taken from local
temples, and sources such as the Mir'at-i Ahmadi extol its
sheer sca le and the number of columns employed.
Neverthe less , the Friday mosque a t Cambay does
not fit comfortably within this type. Th oug h it em ploy sspoliated material, i t does so in an altogether discreet
manner - there are none of the hacked off images visible
in Delhi - and alongside a large amount of purpose
carved material. There is none of the haste sensed in
some of these very early mosques, and it is the only one
to have a solid screen across its trabeate prayer hall , a
fea ture tha t points unequivocal ly to the Quwwat a l -
Islam mosque in Delhi and its "twin" at Ajmer.
Though the first facade screen at Delhi was a later
addition, the idea was faiuvfully continued in every
s ubs e q ue n t e n la rge m e n t of t he Qu ww a t a l - Is l a m
complex during the 13th and 14th centuries , thus
ensuring the currency of this feature at the capital forover a century. I l tu tmi sh 's exten s ion of the Delhi
mosque , undertaken around 627/1229-30, inc luded a
magnificent arched screen as an integral part of the
mo sque plan (Page, 1926, insc.V, p. 30) and it wa s ag ain
Iltutmish who added the screen facade to the Ajmer
mosque around the same t ime. The Delhi and Ajmer
facade screens are unique to India; no parallels are
known in the earlier Islamic architecture of Iran or
Central Asia, nor indeed elsewhere in the Islamic world.
The innovat ion appea rs to have been born in response to
the particular architectural conditions of early Muslim
India, the main effect of these screens being to impart an
immedia te ly " Is lamic" fee l to the archi tec ture ,
concealing the trabeate construction of the prayer hall
and evoking the la rge iwan facades of the Iranian world
(see later discussion of Seljuq iwan a nd do me
combinations). But if the screen facade began life as a
cosmetic mask, by the middle of the 13th century it had
visibly become part of a new mosque plan.
In this context, the presence of a facade screen at
Cam bay is extremely significant because, beyond the
Delhi and Ajmer mosques, no other 13th century or early
14th century mosque in India had a screen of this type. In
other words, the idea of a screen facade was exclusive to
the Delhi and Ajmer mosques until i t appeared for the
first t ime at Cambay. Significantly, the Cambay screen
closely follows these two northern models in the details
of its com positi on. At Camba y, as at Delhi and Ajmer, the
central arch of the screen is accentuated in width andhei ght (F ig. 4). In the first ren de rin g of this idea at Delhi
and Ajmer, no effort appears to have been made to
integrate the screen with the prayer hall behind. As a
consequence , the modes t s ingle s torey prayer ha l l
" p e e k s " through the main central arch of the screen in a
rather disjointed and incongruous fashion. By contrast,
in the later extension of the Quwwat al-Islam mosque
und er I l tu tmish, these two e lements wer e marr ied by the
introduction of a screened back, or clerestory, to the rear
of the central arch (Page, 1926, Plate IV). At Cam bay too,
exactly this feature is em plo yed arou nd the three arches
of the screen (Figs. 4).
cAla ' al-Din Khalji s extens ion of the Friday mosque
in Delhi
The appearance of the facade screen at Cambay can only
be unders tood in the context of the s ingle mos t
important architectural project of the early 14th century:cAla' al-Din Khalji 's scheme for the enlargement and
expans ion of the Quwwat a l -Is lam mosque; Delhi ,
a round 710/1310. Whils t a lmos t nothing of th is
phenomenal projec t remains above ground, a rchaeo
logical excavations and contemporary references reveal
its scale and ambition. The expansion included the
doubling of the area of the mosque, the construction of anumber of monumenta l ga teways - of which the LAla'i
Darwazah is the s ingle remaining example - and the
construction of a second Qutb Minar, double the size of
the f i rs t . The projec t appears to have reached an
advanced s tage of comple t ion, s ince Ibn Bat tuta
described the mosqu e with i ts four courtyards and whi te
walls during his stay in Delhi in the 1340s (Ibn Battuta,
1976, pp. 26-27).
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"A COLLECTION OF ME RITS..."
The Qu ww at a l -Is lam complex wa s a l ready a
symbolically charged complex - with its inscriptions
proclaiming the might of Islam, the Qutb Minar belongs
to a long tradition of Gh urid victory tow ers - and there
is no doubt tha t the expans ion of the complex added
further layers of symbolism. Friday mosques hold a
unique place in the religious and political l ife of each
comm unity s ince the enti re male Musl im p opula t ion of alocality is required to gather together for the Friday
midday prayers. These prayers are first and foremost a
re l ig ious ac t , but they a lso comprise a pol i t ica l
dimens ion, be ing preceded by the reading of the khutbah
in the name of the ruling Sultan. Friday mosques are
therefore the ideal theatre for the communication of
political messages to the widest audience possible. The
fact that lAl a' al-Din Khalji chose to exp and the existing
Friday mosque of Delhi, rather than found a new struc
tu re , can be seen as a demonstration of his adherence to
the idea of the Sultanate and its continuation. Moreover,
by doubling the size of the early structures and literally
swallowing them up within his new mosque, his projectexpressed the extent to which the Khalji conquests had
surpassed those of the early Sultanate.
cAla ' a l -Din 's projec t was known across the
Musl im world and appears to have had a profound
influence upon subsequent Khalji and early Tughluq
architecture, especially in the provinces. The mosque
became one of the major "sights" of India: as one would
expect i t i s ment ioned in Amir Khusraw's Kliaza'in al-
Futuh (Am ir Kh usraw, 1931, pp . 14-17) and Ibn Battuta
devotes a long descript ion to the new expanded Friday
mosque with i ts mul t ip le courts and mass ive minare t
(Ibn Battuta, 1976, pp. 26-28). Purely in terms of
ma npo wer , ' Ala ' a l -Din 's pa tronage mu st have crea ted a
massive influx of labour to Delhi and Amir Khusraw's
account of the project is focused around the massive
search for stone to complete the work. When the project
finished these craftsmen and arc hitects left to wo rk on
other projects in other regions, taking these "new" forms
with them. But the best measure of the attention that the
projec t a t trac ted is prov ided by tw o Mam luk geo
grap hies of the 1320s and 1340s . The m osq ue is
mentioned in the Tatfwim al-Buldan or "Table of the
Countries", a famous geographical treatise by Abu al-
Fida ' the Ayyubid Prince and Governor of Hamah in
Syria, com pleted in 721 /132 1. "In its [Delhi 's] m osq ue
there is a minaret the like of which is not found in the
world; it is built of red stones and has about three
hundred stairs . It has extensive dimensions, is very high
and h as spac ious lower part s" (a l -Qalqashandi , 1939, pp.
27-28). The min aret 's heigh t is also mentio ned in the
Masalik al-Absar fi Mamalik al-Amsar of Shihab al-Din
Ahmad a l -cUmari (d.749/1349,) whe re it is given as ab out
six hund red forearms (al-Qalqash andi, 1939, p. 28).37
The crucial impact of cAla' al-Din Khalji's project is
demonstrated by the fact that a range of architectural
fo rms p re v ious ly un ique to the Qu ww a t a l - Is l a m
mosque and i ts " twin" in Ajmer suddenly reappeared
thr oug hou t India in the late 1310s and 1320s, exactly the
period when these forms were revived by the
enlargem ent of the Delhi mosque . The fa langes found on
the Qutb minar in Delhi and on the but t resses and twin
minarets of the Arha'i din ka Jhonpra mosque at Ajmer,were unique to these two s t ruc tures unt i l they were
revived for the exterior of cAla' al-Din Khalji 's second
Qutb Minar. Thus no falanging is found on 13th century
Rajasthani mosques such as the Shahi Masjid at Khatu -
a mosq ue which otherw ise fol lows the example of Ajmer
in many de ta i ls38 - or the Chauras i Khamba mosque a t
Kaman and the Ukha Mandir mosque a t Bayana . Yet
fa langes reapp ear sud denly in the second d ecade of the
14th century, in the decoration of the 'idgah at Jalor in
Rajasthan, dated by inscription to 718/1318-19, at the
Friday mo sque a t Dawla tabad in the Deccan, cons truc ted
un de r Khalji patro nag e in 1318 AD (Koch, 1991, pp . 100
and 103) and in the pair of stellate plan "turrets" or
pseudo-minare ts above the centra l ga teway of the Ukha
Masjid in Bayana, dated by inscription to 720/1320-21
(Shokoohy, 1987, p. 126). Falanged corner buttresses are
also found on the so-called Kothi gateway at Cambay, a
structure that probably also dates to the 1320s (Fig. 28).
Many later structures across India were to continue this
motif (see Koch, 1991).
28. View of the Kot hi gateway at Cambay, first half of the 14th
century AD . v iew from the south-east showing the falanged
corner buttress.
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ELIZABETH LAMBOURN
Whilst the spread of falanges throughout Indian
architecture was first noted by Ebba Koch (Koch, 1991), i t
was not explicit ly l inked to cAla' al-Din's great project.
The example of the Fr iday mosque at Cambay suggests
th a t t h e a r ch ed f a9 ad e sc reen was b u t an o th er
character is t ic element rev ived by cAla' a l -Din 's p ro ject
and then spread throughout India. As we have seen , in
the 13th century only the Delh i and Ajmer mosques
appe ar to have had facade sc reens, yet these reapp ear
sudd enly in Indian arch i tecture af ter 1310. The f i rs t g erm
of th is idea outs ide Delh i was perhaps in the so-cal led
mosque of Shaykh Barha at Zafarabad near Jaunpur in
eastern India, which carr ied a foundat ion inscr ip t ion
dating it to 711/1311 and the reign of cAla' al-Din Khalji
(Fuhrer, 1889, p. 3). Here the centre of the faςade of the
pray er hal l w as marke d by a large arch betw een tw o
piers whic h appa rent ly ga ve a lo f ty fagade (op . ci t ., p .
30). In Gujarat the idea appears first in the Friday
mosque at Cambay (725/1325) and subsequent ly in the
mosque of Hi lal Mal ik i at nearby Dholka (733/1333) ?9
Other elements of the Delhi project, less directlyindebted to ear ly Sul tanate models , a lso appear to have
been diffused into the provinces to influence the Friday
m o sq u e a t Cam b ay . Th e cAla' i Darwaza clever ly explo i ts
the contrast o f whi te marble and red sandstone for i t s
ex ter ior facing . Polychrome stonework obviously found
favour in Tughluq s t ructures at the capi tal and appears
for the first t ime in the tomb of Ghiyath al-Din Tughluq
c. 1325. Ibn Bat tu ta also ment ions a par t ly bui l t mosque
a t De lh i , a l l eg ed ly co n s t ru c t ed b y Mu h am m ad b in
Tughluq wh ich wa s of wh i te , b lack , red and green
stones ( Ibn Bat tu ta , 1976, pp . 27-28) . How ever , an
ear l ier p rovincial example suggests that th is idea may
have al ready begun to spread in the provinces dur ing theKhal j i per iod , in response to work on the Quwwat al -
I s l am m o sq u e . Th e r ed san d s to n e g a t ew ay o f t h e
720/1320-21 Ukha Masj id at Bayana has contrast ing
ban ds of whi te m arble and the cent ral arch is def ined by
a very del iberate use of al ternat ing red and whi te b locks,
wh ich evoked for Si r John Marsha l l mu ch of the
ornam entat io n of the Qutb bui ld ings {Yazdani , 1917-18,
p. 41).40 Th e p o ly ch ro m e s to n ewo rk fo u n d th ro u g h o u t
the Fr iday m osqu e at Camb ay (Figs . 5 ,6 ,9 & 11) may also
be insp i red mo re by Khalj i mode ls than by ear ly Tughluq
architecture at the capital .
The vocabulary of conquest
Given the weight of meaning al ready at tached to the
Quwwat al - Is lam complex , there seems l i t t le reason to
doubt that some of the symbol ism of the complex was
perp etua ted in these quote s . This i s no t a new idea; a
decade ago Ebba Koch argued that the repeated uses of
falanges on minarets , towers , bu t t resses and even domes
throughout Indian Is lamic arch i tecture were del iberate
quotes back to the form of the Qut b Minar . These quotes ,
she prop osed , were ma de by ru lers wish ing to t ransfer
the s ign i f icance of the pro to type, which had become the
landmark of the estab l ishment of Musl im ru le in India,
onto their ow n constru ction s (Koch, 1991, p. 101). Koch
explained the fact that these falanges are often included
as only minor decorative motifs on a variety of structures
(often not minarets) as a reflection of the medieval
pr incip le of evoking the meaning of a pro to type through
selected elements rather than fai thfu l ly reproducing the
ent i re or ig inal . The ev idence rev iewed above suggests
that Ebba Koch 's or ig inal idea can be ex tended to include
o th er e l em en t s o f t h e Qu wwat a l - I s l am co m p lex .
Perhaps i t was the en t i re Quwwat al - Is lam complex , no t
s imply the Qu tb Minar , that becam e the landm ark of
the estab l ishment of Musl im ru le in India , and more
than one elem ent could ca rry wi th i t the significance of
the whole.
Nev er th e l ess , t h e t ask o f d i sen t an g l in g wh a t
precisely these quo tes we re in tended to mea n is far
f rom easy. Ma ny of the bui ld in gs that quot e theQuwwat al - Is lam complex have no inscr ip t ions to clar i fy
thei r symbol ism and in ten t . Fur thermore, the complex
i tself had al ready b ecome imbu ed w i th mul t ip le layers of
symbol ism, that o f the or ig inal mosque and the f i rs t
conquest of India, of Il tutmish's extension, of the Qutb
Minar and then of cAla' al-Din Khalji 's own project. Like
Ebba Koch, we can safely venture that at i ts most generic,
the al lusions to the p lan of the Qu ww at al - Is lam mos que
in t h e F r id ay m o sq u e a t Cam b ay p ro c l a im th e
estab l ishm ent of Mus l im ru le in Gujarat , and more
speci f ical ly Cambay. But the message i s perhaps rather
more speci f ic , and we should take in to account the
twen ty-year delay betw een the actual conque st o f thereg ion and the const ruct ion of the mosque, and the
consequent po l i t ical and mater ial changes.
As the Fr iday mosque at Cambay was not bu i l t in
the immediate af termath of the conquest o f Gujarat in
7 0 4 /1 3 0 4 -0 5 , i t d em an d s i n t e rp re t a t i o n i n an o th er
context. The reasons for the delay are simple: western
India 's long h is tory of Musl im set t lement , go ing back to
the late 10 th century meant that many towns al ready had
mosques and Fr iday mosques. The s i te of Cambay was
developed aroun d 971 AD , and appro pr iately e noug h,
the earliest specific reference to a Friday mosque at
Cam b ay i s i n Ib n Hawq al ' s Ashkal al-Bilad finished in
366/976, where he men t ions that there are Fr idaymo sque s at Famha l , S indan , Saim ur and Kam baya ( Ibn
Ha wq al , 1867-77 , p . 38). At most i t ma y have been
necessary to en large these ex is t ing mosques to provide
for a larger Musl im populat ion . The Adina mosque at
Patan seems to be the only except ion to th is , whe re, a t the
Solanki capital , i t was clearly imperative to construct a
large Fr iday mosque immediately af ter the conquest . As
far as can be gauge d f rom the su rv iv ing bu i ld ings i t was
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"ACOLLECTION OF MERITS..."
only from the 1320s onwards that the construction of
monumenta l Friday mosques began on a la rge sca le , a t
Bharuch in 721/132 1, a t Camb ay in 725/1325 4 1 , at
Dholka in 733/1333, a t Kapadw anj in 772/1370-71, and
at Mandal .
The timing of these constructions relates to the
history of Tughluq rule in Gujarat, for though a region
could be conquered, th is d id not mean tha t the ent i reregion had come under secure Musl im government .
Al though Gujara t was conquered in 704/1304-05, the
first twenty years of Muslim rule there were extremely
loose. For much of this time it was, in practice, beyond
the control of Delhi , e i ther quie t ly independent or
somet imes in open secess ion from the capi ta l , an
ins t a b i l i t y tha t c a nno t ha ve e nc oura ge d l a rge
architectural projects . The period around 725/1325-26
marks a critical turning point in the Muslim control of
Gujarat . In 725 Mu ham ma d ibn Tughluq cam e to power
and established strong central control over Gujarat by
radica l ly a l te r ing the s t ruc ture of Musl im government .
Whereas Gujara t was previous ly governed from theregional capital of Anhilawad Patan by a single governor
or na ' ib , Muhammad ibn Tughluq fol lowed the pr inc iple
of d ivid e and rule , in t ro duc ing a four-pa rt p ow er
s t ruc ture wi th i ts own natura l checks and ba lances . 42
Although the Friday mosque a t Cambay was not bui l t
under the pa tronage of the Tughluq Sul tan himself, its
patron al-Butihari was at the heart of this process of
consol ida t ion through his mil i ta ry career in Punjab,
Bengal and later Telangana. In the political context of the
1320s, the allusions to the architecture of the early Delhi
Sul tanate communica ted not only the Musl im conques t
of Gujarat in 704/1304-05 but also and perhaps above all
the renewal of Tughluq central control over the region,and of course specifically Cambay.43
The pre-conquest architecture of western India
We have spoken so far of adop ted no rthern mod els but i t
i s a lso important to underl ine the extent to which the
Friday mosque at Cambay was also a rejection of pre-
conques t Is lamic models . Phys ica l t races of the
archi tec ture of these pre-conques t Musl im communit ies
are genera l ly scare , no pre-conqu es t s t ruc tures ha ve been
identified so far at Cambay or even in the plain of
Gujara t more genera l ly , though there a re plent i fulepigraphic and textua l re ferences to the ir exis tence
(Lambou rn, for thcoming). In spi te of th is , surviving pre-
conques t mosq ues in Saurashtra an d Kutch, and o ther
mater ia l evidence sugges t tha t the Friday mosque a t
Cam bay int roduced a new sca le , mater ia l and p erha ps
even a new ground plan.
An obvious yet basic point is that the use of stone
on such a scale cannot have been usual. The central
alluvial plain of Gujarat is bereft of stone, with the result
tha t m any to wn s in th is a rea came to rely on con s truc t ion
in a mixture of brick and timber.44 Stone was genera l ly
employed only for focal areas such as inscriptions,
mihrabs a n d minbars. Few old structures of this type have
survived owing to the vulnerability of these materials ,
but a late and particularly clear description of this
bui lding method in domes t ic a rchi tec ture is found in the
mid-18th century Mir'at-i Ahmadi. The author s ta tes tha t"walls of houses are built of baked bricks. The roof is
covered w ith teakw ood an d c lay ti les" , and again
"teakwood is used for roofs and pillars of buildings"
(Khan, 1965, p. 12). The old est exa mp le of this type of
cons truc t ion a t Cambay is the mid-17th century mosque
bui l t by the horse t rader and port adminis t ra tor cAli
Akbar; however , the t radi t ion probably goes back to the
very earliest centuries of Islamic architecture. 40 As the
Friday mosq ue and the amo unts of re -used tem ple spol ia
demons tra te , s tone was cer ta inly employed a t Cambay,
but i t was expens ive and brought from grea t d is tances .
James Forbes summed up the impl ica t ions of s tone mos t
succ inc t ly when he remarked tha t the former weal th andmagn ificence of Cam bay could be judg ed from the
quant i ty of marble found there . "The charge of
t ransport ing them thi ther" , remarked Forbes , "mus t
have been immense , the mounta ins from whence they
are hewn being very distant" (Forbes, 1834, p. 321). The
sheer volum e of s tone used for the mosq ue proc la ims the
status of the project and the wealth of its patron. The fact
tha t the Friday mosque was la rge ly bui l t f rom s tone
ta ke n f rom ne a rby t e mple s s imp ly a dds a no the r
dimension to the significance of this material.
I t seems poss ible tha t the mosque a lso broke with
the ground plan of earlier Islamic architecture of the
region. The pre-conques t s t ruc tures tha t survive a t
Junagadh and the former port of Bhadresvar present a
number of s imilar i t ies tha t appear to indica te the
regional characteristics of pre-conquest architecture in
this part of India . The two mid-12th century mosques a t
Bhadresvar in Kutch and the la te 13th century m osqu e a t
Junagadh in Saurashtra a re not hypos tyle plan mosques .
Both the Chhot i mosque a t Bhadresvar and the mosque
of al-lraji at Junagadh in Saurashtra, dated by inscription
to 685/1286, cons is t of smal l covered prayer ha l ls ,
f ronted by subs tant ia l columned porches (Shokoohy,
1988, Figs. 28 & 41) . The Chh ot i mo sque w as appro ached
through a wal led courtyard. Both s t ruc tures had externa l
mihrabs placed o n the outer face of the pray er hall wall.
Mehrdad Shokoohy has a l ready observed tha t la rge
port icoes are not a fea ture of contemporary mosques
elsewhere in the Islamic world and may well be "a local
innovat ion, perhap s based on the Ja in and H indu open
colo nnad es in Gujarat" (Shokoohy, 1988, p. 21). Onl y the
So la kha mbi mos que a t B ha dre s va r ha s a c e n t ra l
courtyard tha t might e l ic i t the appel la t ion hypos tyle
plan mosque . However, th is court i s so smal l as to seem
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ELIZABETH LAMBOURN
an afterth oug ht and it is even m ore difficult to justify the
appel lat ion when one takes in to account the co lumned
portico fronting the mosque (Shokoohy, 1988, Fig. 14). It
seems l ikely then that the very p lan of Cambay 's Fr iday
mosque broke wi th ear l ier t rad i t ions in the reg ion ,
d isor ien t ing the local Musl im v is i to r . I t very probably
also presented a rad ical change in scale , s ince the
Solakhambi mosque at Bhadresvar measures c . 20 by 13
m. ex ternal ly , the Chhot i mosque (as i t s name indicates)
only 13 by 10 m., and that at Junag adh 12 ,5 by just u nder
10 m. By comparison the 64.5 by 60 m. of the Friday
m o sq u e a t Cam b ay sh ran k th e v i s i t o r an d d ro v e h o m e
the might of the Tughluq empire. Even the pr incipal
mihrabs in the mo sque go poin ted ly a gainst local types.
Thei r p lain poin ted arches on inset co lumnet tes are
closer to nor thern Sul tanate models than the lobed
cu sp ed a rch es an d t h ree -d im en s io n a l ly ca rv ed h an g in g
l am p s o f o th er co n t em p o rary Cam b ay mihrabs (compare
Lambourn, 1999b, Plates 9, 10 & 11). Only their semi
ci rcu lar p lan cont inues pre-conquest models (Shokoohy,
1988, p. 16-17).
Like al l g reat bu i ld ings the Fr iday mosque at
Cam bay probably w orked on several levels . I t s message
of conquest ex is ts no t on ly in the sophist icated quotes
back to the Quwwat al - Is lam mosque in Delh i bu t also in
the very s implest elements such as i t s mater ial , g round
plan and elevat ion . Whi ls t no t everyone may have been
able to grasp the speci f ic al lusions to the Delh i mosque
o r h av e k n o wn ab o u t cAla' al-Din Khalji 's project, the
mosque presented a rad ical change in mater ials , scale
an d a rch i t ec tu ra l v o cab u la ry t h a t m u s t h av e b een
evident to all .
PART III
TH E K AZARUNI T O MB CO MPLEX
It is hard to think of a greater contrast to the Friday
m o sq u e t h an t h e Kazaru n i t o m b co m p lex , wh ich i s a s
gene rous in it s gather ing of sources as the Fr iday m osq ue
is s ing le-minded .
Pishtaq an d d o m e - t h e Cen t r a l As i an an d ea r ly
Su l t an a t e b ack g ro u n d
Analysed in basic terms, the cent ral c lement of the
Kazaruni tomb complex is a combinat ion of a domeduni t ( the mausoleum) f ronted by a pishtaq (Figs. 2 & 14)
- a combinat ion wi th a long and s t rong h is tory in I ran ian
archi tecture.
In the funerary context one of the earliest examples
of th is com binat ion i s the 'Ara b Ata maus oleu m at Tim in
Uzb ek i s t an (3 6 7 /9 7 7 -7 8 ) wh ich co m b in es a d o m ed
square wi th a pishtaq fagade. I t s exam ple insp i red a ser ies
of later nt h ce ntury FCarakhanid building s in the regio n
which cont inue th is idea, reconf igur ing and rebalancing
the relat ionship of the two par ts , bu t the idea cont inued
in to the 14th century , for exam ple in the Gunba d- i Man as
at Man as in Kirgistan (c. 734/13 34), the tom b of Baba
Luqman at Sarakhs (757/1356) and the mausoleum of
Tu rab ek Kh an u m a t Ku n y a Urg en ch ( c . 7 7 0 /1 3 6 9 )
(Hillenbrand, 1994, pp. 287-97). Whilst these examples
are important and relate specifically to funerary archi
tecture, they are all Central Asian and it is unclear at
present how di rect an inf luence thay may have had on
archi tecture at Cambay.
I t i s impo rtan t to und er l ine that the combinat ion of
d o m e a n d pishtaq is even mo re comm on outs ide funerary
architecture. Besides a long Seljuq Iranian tradition of
domes f ronted by iwans or pishtaqs, the combinat ion also
had a s t rong independent h is tory in Is lamic India.46
Discussions of the domed st ructure/ i w a n or pishtaq
combinat ion in India have main ly cent red on Tughluq
Delh i , where the combinat ion i s general ly said to appear
for the f i rs t t ime under I ran ian inf luence at the
Jahanpanah or Begampur mosque bui l t around 1343.
Here the combinat ion i s used both for the en t rance
gateway of the mosque and to mark the cent re of the
prayer hall faςade (Welch & Crane, 1993, Fig. 1, Plates 3
& 4) . This v iew tends to over look the ex ten t to which a
seed of this idea was already present in the some of the
ear l ies t Ind ian Sul tanate mosques. At the Quwwat al -
Is lam complex , the main east en t rance to Qutb al -Din 's
m o sq u e i s m ark ed b y a h ig h pishtaq gateway wi th
steps lead ing up in to a large domed bay at the cent re
o f t h e eas t e rn co lo n n ad e . Sm al l e r pishtaqs, wi th o u t
p ro n o u n ced d o m es b eh in d t h em , a l so m ark t h e cen t r es
of the north and south colonnades (Page, 1926, Plates Il ia
& V). In a similar fash ion, hig h pishtaq gatew ays (w i thout
signi f ican t domes behind them) mark the en t rance to the
to m b o f Ab u a l -Fa th Mah m u d o r Su l t an Gh ar i
(629/1231) in Delhi, and the entrances to three late
12th /e ar ly 13th century mosq ues in Rajasthan, the Arha ' i
d in ka Jhompra mosque at Ajmer , the Chaurasi Khamba
mosque at Bayana and the Ukha Mandir mosque at
Ka ma n. The idea first seen in Delhi is obvio usly der ived
direct ly f rom Ghurid monumental por tals such as that o f
th e Sh ah -i Ma sh ad madrasah (561/1165-66) in Ga rgistan ,
Afg hani stan (Cas imir & Glatz er, 1971), wh ich iteslf
ultimately derives from Seljuq prototypes. This pishtaq
t rad i t ion contrasts qu i te markedly wi th the type of
domed, co lumned porch seen in 14th century Gujarat ,
for example in the cast en t rance to the Fr iday mosque at
Cam bay (Fig . 2 ) , and wh ich derv ives f rom local Ind ian
m o d el s .
The ear ly Sul tanate type of pishtaq an d d o m e p o r t a l
also appears to have been of in terest in nor thern India
aroun d the t ime of the const ruct ion of the Kazaruni tomb
complex . Another var iat ion around th is combinat ion i s
seen at the Buland Darwaza at the Khanqah al-Tarikin in
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"A COLLECTION OF MERITS..."
Na gau r in Rajasthan (Shokoohy, 1993, pp . 33-36, Figs. 11
& 12, Plate 7). As its na m e sugge sts , the Bulan d Da rwa za
is a mass ive entrance ga teway tha t leads to the khanqali
conta ining the tomb of Hamid a l -Din Chisht i and is
da ted by inscr ipt ion to 733/1333 under the direc t
pa tronage of Muhammad ibn Tughluq Shah. A mass ive
arched porta l leads through to a t r ip le domed s t ruc ture
behind and thence in to the khanqah c omp ound . Thebalance between the two elements is closer to that first
seen in Delhi, rather than that at Cambay, since the
height and bulk of the Buland Darwazah a lmos t dwarfs
the s ingle s torey domes behind. Neverthe less , as a t
Cambay, the portal has two spiral s taircases in its wings
which lead up to roof level and has a window or balcony
inserted into the upper part of the arch. Whilst the
Buland Darwaza is not a d i rec t model for the Kazaruni
mausoleum, i t demons tra tes the cont inui ty of the ear ly
Sul tanate pishtaq and dome combinat ion in wes tern India
during the 1330s.
The a l -Kazaruni complex seems to si t be twee n two
traditions: the Central Asian line of mausolea with
pishtaq facades and an Indian Islamic line of pishtaq a nd
dom e gatewa ys . The dual i ty of these sources in any case
neat ly ref lec ts the dua l funct ion of a l -K azaru ni 's
mausoleum and porta l . On the one hand, the pishtaq a t
Cambay serves as the entrance ga te to a l -Kazaruni 's
domed mausoleum, but f rom another angle the pishtaq
and domed oc tagon s imply funct ion as a s ingle
monumenta l entrance uni t to the Friday mosque behind.
Meanwhile , the pishtaq po r t a l wa s unde rgo ing a
specific evolution of its own in Il-Khanid Iran, that
appears to have had direct influence on other aspects of
the complex.
I l -Kha n id m ode l s : the pishtaq w i th tw i n mina re t s
Und oub te d ly the mos t impre s s ive e l e me n t o f a l -
Kazarun i 's tomb complex was the pa ir of tower m inare ts
tha t c rowned the pishtaq (Fig. 19). The models here are
overwhelmingly Iranian but can be traced to specific and
contem porary s t ruc tures . Doub le minare ts appe ar to
have been introduced in Seljuq Iran during the 12th
century AD, since portals crowned by pairs of cylindrical
b r i c k mina re t s g ra c e d the ma us o le um o f M u 'mina
Khatu n a t Nakh chiw an in Azerbai jan (582/1186) and the
mosque of Imam Hasan a t Ardis tan in Iran (553/1158),and pa ired minare ts a lso appear to have been used
to mark the central iwan of certain prayer hall fagades.
I cann ot be t te r R. Hi l len bra nd ' s ana lys is of th is
phenomenon: "pa ired minare ts es tabl ished themselves
as a means of lending extra importance to the entrance
gate of a build ing. This articu lating function further
distanced the minaret from any liturgical purpose, but it
allowed the minaret 's long-traditional role as a marker to
develop in new directions" (Hillenbrand, 1994, p. 154). It
is probably from this original Seljuq Iranian source that
the two fa langed towers a t the Arha ' i d in ka Jhonpra
mosque a t Ajmer derive , even though they are not
funct ioning tower minare ts but s imply sol id s tone
tow ers. How ever , there is no reaso n to look to the Ajmer
mosque as the model for a l -Kazaruni 's tomb complex.
From Sel juq Iran, pa ired minare ts , a lways in br ick, were
adopted wes twards in Se l juq Turkey, where a number ofmid -13 th c e n tu ry bu i ld ing s in c e n t ra l a nd e a s t e rn
Anatol ia have impress ive s tone porta ls topped by pa irs
of br ick minare ts . 4 7 This Se l juq t radi t i on w as a lso
enthus ias t ica l ly cont in ued in 14th century Iran un der the
Il-Khanids.
So far, some eleven examples of paired minarets
associa ted wit h pishtaqs or iwans, ha ve be e n d oc ume n te d
in Iran during the first three decades of the 14th century,
beginning with the ga teway of the Rab-i Rashidi , the
tomb complex of the Il-Khanid vizier Rashid al-Din, at
Sultaniyya (709/1309), and that to the tomb complex of
the Il-Khanid Sultan Uljaitu at the same site (Blair, 1986,
p. 144). Man y exam ples of pa ired minare ts w ere tofol low, grac ing the ga teways of the congregat ional
mosque at Ashtarjan (715/1315-16), the iwan over the
grave of a sufi shaykh at Garladan (716/1316-17), the
congregational mosque at Yazd (724/1323-24) and the
tomb of Rukn al-Din in the same city (725/1324-25), the
Du Minar Dardasht , the Du Minar Dar a l -Diyyafa and
the Du Minar Bagh-i Qush Khana all at Isfahan and all
da ted c . 725/1325 , a lso the porta l of the Nizam iyya
madrasah at Abar quh (c. 725/132 5), and finally the to mb
of Sha ms al-Din at Yazd (728/1327-28) (Blair, 1986, p. 28,
Bloom, 1989, p. 179). The sheer number of examples, and
their concentration in central Iran mean that one can talk
of a real fashion for paired minarets in this area duringthe 1310s and 1320s. Give n al-Ka zarun i 's Iranian origins
and the strength of Iranian settlement at Cambay, these
examples provide the mos t obvious source for the
appearance of the idea in the Kazaruni complex.
Although we cannot compare the mater ia ls used
for the construction of the Kazaruni minarets , their form
and articulation with the gateway follow these Iranian
models c lose ly . Like the Iranian examples they are
associa ted with an entrance ga teway and are "smoothly
integrated so that the upper shafts of the minarets shoot
up directly from the iwan roof; the ir lower port ions are
not separa te ly em phas ised" (Hil lenbrand, 1994, p . 156) .In the truest tradition of Persian minarets , those at
Cambay fulfil multiple functions. The pishtaq ga teway
faces south onto the Gulf of Cambay and, as Forbes '
s ke tc h s hows , i ts mina re t s dom ina te d the C a mb a y
skyline (Fig. 19). There is every reason to believe that
these fulfilled m ore th an just a li turgical function as sites
for the call to prayer: their height also made them ideal
wa tc h towe rs fo r t he inha b i t a n t s o f C a mba y a nd
landmarks - perhaps even l ighthouses as the te rm
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ELIZABETH LAMBOURN
manara or "place of light" indicates - for ships coming
in to po r t . Inde e d , mina re t s ha ve func t ione d a s
l ighthouses and road markers from the very ear l ies t
centuries of Islam. Finch's account of Cambay certainly
s t ressed the s t ra tegic na ture of the surviving minare t ,
re ferr ing to it as a "watch tow cr" . The d ouble minare ts of
the Kazaruni tomb complex bring new evidence of the
continuation of an originally Seljuq idea to western
India.
It is impossible to overemphasise the originality of
these minare ts in the Indian context and the ir con sequent
impact on the Islamic architecture of Gujarat. The history
of the minare t in India is of ten dominated by the Qutb
Minar and the other s ingle tower minare ts or v ic tory
towers that it inspired, such as cAla' al-Din Khalji 's
second Qutb Minar or the minare t a t Chota Pandua in
Bengal (c. 1300 bu t usua lly dat ed v arious ly to the 14th
and 15th centuries AD). This focus tends to obscure the
fac t tha t tower minare ts were not genera l ly used in
Indian Is lamic archi tec ture unt i l the Mughal period. As
regards Gujara t in the 14th century, no contemporary
mosques , not even the adjacent Friday mosque a t
Cambay, had minare ts . There are no tower minare ts a t
the 721/1321 Friday mosq ue of Bharuch, a t the 733/1333
mosque a t Dholka , or the la te r mosques a t Kapadwanj
and Mandal , nor in the ir successors in Saurashtra . The
call to prayer was made from the roof of the mosque,
reached via staircases built into the fagade screen or the
side walls of the mosque. The small ckattris found on the
roofs of many of these mosques probably shaded and
hous e d the mu'adhdhin in his call. It is also highly
unlikely that tower minarets existed in Gujarat before the
Musl im conques t . As Forbes ' v iew of Cambay and the
comments of la te r wes tern t rave l le rs i l lus t ra te , tower
mina re t s a l s o ma de a dmi ra b le wa tc h towe rs a nd
l ighthouses . These uses of the tower minare t su gges t tha t
during the pre-conques t per iod Hindu rulers may wel l ,
have l imited or even banned the cons truc t ion of tower
minare ts amongs t the Musl im communit ies they hos ted
simply for strategic reasons.
The archi tec t and planner of a l -Kazaruni 's tomb
complex was certainly not the only one in Gujarat to be
famil ia r wi th these Iranian forms; indeed, the num ber s of
pa ired pseudo -min are ts cons truc ted in Gujara t dur ing
the first half of the 14th century suggest that the
contemporary I l -Khanid fashion for pa ired minare ts was
very wel l known in wes tern India . In the Friday mosquea t C a m ba y the s e ps e ud o-m ina re t s a re s ho r t s qua t
pyra mid s of cut s tone (Fig . 4) , a t Manda l and Mang rol
they are large pla in mason ry colum ns . Perhap s the f inest
pseudo-minare ts in Gujara t a re the two mass ive and
ornately carved pillars , over 4,5 metres or 15 feet high,
which mark the centre of the prayer hall fagade of the
733/1333 Hilal Maliki mosque at Dholka (Burgess, 1896,
Plates XXV & XXVII). However, the technical skill and
funds for cons truc t ing t rue tower minare ts appear to
have been lacking in Gujarat. In this context, pseudo-
minare ts were the idea l solut ion, indica t ing knowledge
of the "correct" Iranian form and its use, even if the real
th ing could not be bui l t . Al-Kazaruni 's tomb complex
was the first s tructure in Gujarat to introduce a pair of
funct ioning tower minare ts , t rue to the Iranian model .
The feat was to influence mosque architecture under the
Ahmad Shahi Sul tans and produce the only regional
tradition of tower minarets in India prior to the Mughal
period.
Local Gujara t i inf luenc es
If the dome and pishtaq combination is a tried and tested
com pone nt of Pers ianate a rchi tec ture , and the porta l and
minare ts a t Cambay can be shown to derive from
contemporary I l -Khanid models , the remaining e lements
of a l -Kazaruni 's complex fol low other sources . The
western part of the complex, with its small prayer space
and s ingle muluk kkanah, is visibly modelled on the
adjacent Friday mosque . With the except ion of the
L-shaped walkway, it is almost as if the unit around one
of the muluk khanas in the mosque had been cut out and
transported next door (Figs. 7 & 24). Indeed, this part of
the complex employs the same dimens ions for the s ize
and height of its bays as the adjacent Friday mosque,
whi ls t the mihrab in the Kazarun i complex is almost
identical to the three main mihrabs in the mosque (Figs.
10 an d 22).
Al-Kazaruni 's mausoleum appears to turn to ye t
other sources . No Iranian brick mausoleum has the
openness of a l -Kazaruni 's oc tagon and the same play of
levels and vistas (Figs. 13, 20 & 25). Along with itstrabeate construction and Gujarati decoration, the form
of al-Kazaruni 's mausoleum finds its most direct sources
in local architectu ral traditio ns. To som e extent the
mausoleum reca l ls the two s toreyed mandapas and
porches somet imes bui l t a t temples in wes tern India .
Famous examples a re the mult i -s torey mandapas a t the
Padmanatha temple at Gwalior, probably of the late 11th
cent ury (Burgess and C ouse ns, 1903, pp . 63-62 and n o.2),
a t the Rudramahalaya temple a t Siddhapur (Burgess and
Cou sens, 1903, pp . 58-92 and P late XXXVII), and at the
Navalakha temple a t Ghumli in Saurashtra , both of the
mid- 12th ce ntur y (C ousen s, 1931, p. 36 an d Plate XXIV).
However, these are genera l ly very la rge , heavys truc tures and fol low a s tepped oc tagonal p lan qui te
different from al-Kazaruni 's pure, open octagon.
Perhaps surprisingly, the closest sources for the
plan and structure of the mausoleum seem to lie in the
stepwell architecture of western India. One of the most
famous and bes t res tored examples is the 11th century
Queen 's s tepwel l a t Pa tan (Mankodi , 1991) but the
region is peppered with such monumenta l wel ls - many,
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A COLLECTION OF M ERITS..."
indeed, of the 14th century - consisting of a deep circular
or octagonal well shaft reached by a long stairway
de s c e nd ing d ia gona l ly towa rds the s ha f t . Though
obvious ly cons truc ted down into the ear th as opposed to
above ground, these s t ruc tures make a very s imilar p lay
of walkways and ga l le r ies providing views though and
across to other sections of the structure. The multi-
storeyed octagonal or circular central wells of thesestep-wells provide a far better parallel for the structure
of a l -Kazaruni 's mausoleum then the mandapas jus t
ment ioned. One might even compare the organisa t ion of
the tomb complex to tha t of a s tepwel l . The mausoleum
is inserted between the heavy parallel walls of the Friday
mosque on the north and the exterior wall of the tomb
complex on the south, in the same way that the galleries
and stairs of a step-well are buttressed by the parallel
earthen walls of the well. The only difference is that in a
step-well the central shaft is placed at one en d of the
s t ruc ture , whereas a l -Kazaruni 's mausoleum s i ts a t the
centre of the complex.
Pre-conquest funerary architecture in Western India
As was the case with the adjacent Friday mosque it is
essent ia l to remember the pre-conques t t radi t ion of
Islamic architecture that existed in Gujarat. One cannot
he lp wondering whether the Kazaruni complex owes a
debt, however small, to an earlier local tradition of
Islamic funerary architecture. As always this question
s tumbles agains t the problem of the pauci ty of su rviving
s truc tures , wri t ten sources or inscr ipt ions . Al though the
construction of mosques before the conquest is well
attested to in textual references, inscriptions and a few
survivals , information about funerary architecture is
much sparser .
Al-Kazaruni 's tomb is one of the few Islamic
mausolea ear l ie r than the 15th century to have survived
in we s te rn Ind ia . The " l a rge ma us o le u ms a nd
Mahometan tombs in the form of c i rc les and oc tagons"
seen at Cambay by James Forbes have all disappeared
and, in any case, we have no idea of their dating (Forbes,
1834, p. 320). Tho se structu res tha t do surv ive bea r li t t le
re la t ionship to a l -Kazaruni 's mausoleum, le t a lone his
funerary complex. The shrine of Ibrahim (554/1159-60)
a t Bhadresvar may have been bui l t as a mausoleum
although there is no trace of a grave within the structure
and a funerar y funct ion is not men t ion ed in the
bui lding 's foundat ion inscr ipt ion (Shokoohy, 1988, pp.
14-19, 53-55 & Figs. 3-8). Even if this building can be
proved to have had a funerary funct ion, the shrine
consists of a single storey domed square, fronted by a
small po rch and bears li t t le relation in either scale or p lan
to a l -Ka z a run i ' s ma us o le um. An e x te ns ive I s l a mic
graveyard s t re tches a long the shore l ine be tw een Veraval
and Somnath Patan in Saurashtra and inc ludes a number
of simple chattris. Yet here again we currently have lit t le
idea of the date of these structures which, in any case,
bear l i tt le re la t ion to a l -Kazaruni 's m ausoleu m. T he only
mau soleu m of the Tugh luq period to have survived in
Gujarat, besides al-Kazaruni 's , is that of shaykh Arjun al-
Akhs i a t Pe t lad. In contras t to the Cambay mausoleum,
this appears to have fol lowed Tughluq prototypes s ince
i t has been described as "a square s t ruc ture c rown ed bya s ingle dome. I t i s somewhat squat and heavy in
proport ions and resembles the tomb of Ghiyathu-d-din
Tugh laq at Delh i" (Yazdani, 1915-16, p. 15).
The paucity of early Islamic mausolea in Gujarat
may be part ly due to the famil ia r problems of
cons truc t ion in ephemera l mater ia ls such as br ick and
t imber. However, the pauci ty even of texts and
inscript ions ment ioning mausolea ra ises the poss ibi l i ty
that funerary architecture had very lit t le place within
these communit ies . As a minori ty community within the
Chaulukya and la te r the Vaghela kingdom, Musl ims
could not found bui ldings or use land without the
approval of the loca l adminis t ra t ion. The Sanskri tport ion of the 662/1264 mosque foundat ion inscr ipt ion
of Firuz ibn Abu Ibrahim from Prabhas Patan in
Saurashtra testifies to the fact that the foundation of a
mos que enta i led not only the purchase or donat ion of the
l a nd f rom a non- M us l im l a ndow ne r , bu t a l s o
necess i ta ted the approval of the town's - aga in non-
Mu slim - pan cha ku la or board of adm inistr ator s (Sircar,
1961-62). It can be imagined that the Muslim practice of
burying one 's dead, ra ther than cremat ing them, ra ised
some difficult issues about the pollution of land, and
perhaps discouraged or l imited the development of
I s l a mic c e me te r i e s a nd ma us o le a . A t p re -c onque s t
t rading s i tes such as Bhadresvar in Kutch andKayalp a tnam in Tamil Na du, cem eter ies are c lus tered
around mosques or shrines - thus in land a l ready under
Musl im ownership - and are not s i tua ted outs ide the
town walls , as was common in the rest of the Islamic
world . These pa t te rns may perhaps sugges t cer ta in
constraints on the use of land for burial, and a paucity of
land avai lable for Musl im buria ls would cer ta inly have
prohibi ted or a t leas t d iscouraged the cons truc t ion of
mausolea . More comple te evidence for th is theory is
obviously difficult to come by; however, the 10th century
Musl im geographer a l -Idr is i , c i t ing the authori ty of a l -
M a s c udi , seems to a l lude to such problems w hen he
reports tha t " in a ll the countr ies of Hind an d Sindh thereare Musulmans and they bury the ir dead secre t ly by
night in their houses" (al-Idrisi, 1990, p. 89).
House buria l has venerable precedents in the
M u s l i m w o r l d s i n c e t h e P r o p h e t M u h a m m a d w a s
himself buried in the house of one of his wives at
Medina . However, the passage in a l -Idr is i appears to
suggest that by the 10th century this was peculiar to
Musl im India , or a t leas t more common there than in
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ELIZABETH LAMBOURN
other areas of the Islamic world. Private and secret burial
wi thin the prec inc t of a Musl im house appears to be a
logical solution to restrictions on the use of land for
buria l in pre-conques t Gujara t . Such buria ls would
certa inly have rendered a grave marker unnecessary, and
would obvious ly have he ld back the development of
monume n ta l ma us o le a .
The answer to this problem is stil l a long way off
since only archaeological excavations offer some chance
of recovering details of pre-conquest architecture in
western India, a project that the religious and political
tensions in the state make impossible. Overall i t seems
unl ike ly tha t a s t ron g loca l t rad i t ion of funer ary
archi tec ture had developed in wes tern India before the
c onque s t . Pe rha ps the s t ronge s t e v ide nc e fo r the
weakness of such a t radi t ion is the experimenta l na ture
of the Kazaruni complex and the range of a rchi tec tura l
sources gathered together in its creation.
PA R T IV
THE INFLUENCE OF THE FRIDAY MOSQUE AND
KAZARUNI TOMB COMPLEX
The Fr ida y mos que a nd Ka z a run i tomb c omple x
cons t i tu te one of the mos t ambit ious and impress ive
archi tec tura l projec ts undertaken in Gujara t before the
grea t bui ld ing projec ts of the independent Sul tanate in
the 15th century. Given Cambay 's s ta tus as the premier
port of western India and the fierce architectural rivalry
among i ts fore ign merchants , i t i s hardly surpris ing tha t
architecture of this calibre, so rich in influences and
ideas , should be found there . Tho ugh i t i s t rue tha tnothin g remains of Anh i lawad Patan - th e then capi ta l of
Gujara t - aga ins t wh ich to gaug e th is achievement , i t wa s
Cambay ra ther than Patan tha t Ibn Bat tuta s ingled out
for its architectural excellence and patronage, indicating
the pr imacy of the port . Indeed, as the cont inued
de ve lop me n t o f t he s e a fron t a t C a m ba y un de r the
Sul tans of Gujara t demons tra tes , the Friday mosque and
Kazaruni complex became points of re ference for
s ubs e que n t ge ne ra t ions a nd p rov ide d the bu i ld ing
blocks of la te r Ahmad Shahi mosque archi tec ture .
The use of extant s t ruc tures , inscr ipt ions and
decoration as models for later generations is an im
portan t , if badly docum ented, p hen om eno n in Is lamicart and archi tec ture (Bloom, 1993), as no dou bt in Hi nd u
and Jain practice. The copying of inscriptions at Cambay,
as seen in the case of the Friday mosque inscription, has
a lready been ment ioned. Whils t Ebba Koch has a l ready
examined the inf luence of the Friday mosque a t Cambay
on certa in de ta i ls of Mu ghal a rchi tec ture - com parin g the
chattri a t the centre of the mosque 's courtyard to the so-
called philosopher's seat at Fatehpur Sikri (Michell and
Shah, 1988, p. 170) - the importance of these two
buildings was recognised long before that.
The Tughluq period
The Friday mosque and Kazaruni tomb complex are
important addi t ions to the overa l l p ic ture of provinc ia l
Tughluq archi tec ture . As the analys is of these two
s truc tures shows, the re la t ionship be tween archi tec ture
in the provinces and that in the capital was complex. Just
as the Friday mosque illustrates the diffusion of revived
early Sultanate forms from the capital to Gujarat, the
Kazaruni tomb complex i l lus t ra tes the extent to which
provinc ia l s t ruc tures could in t roduce new archi tec tura l
ideas from outside India and mingle these with local
Indian sources .
The two s t ruc tu res appear to have had only a very
limited local impact in the 14th century. The arched
facade screen was only included in three later Tughluq
mosques in Gujarat: in the Hilal Maliki mosque at
Dholka (733/1333) the Friday mosque a t Mangrol
(785 /1383-84) , a nd the Fr ida y mos que a t M a nda l
(probably late 14th century). The majority of hypostyle
mosques cont inued to have open t rabeate prayer ha l ls .
Al-Kazaru ni 's mau soleum a lso app ears to have had l i t tle
or no influence on subsequent funerary architecture in
Gujara t . Though no la te r 14th century mausolea are
documented so far in Gujarat, those of the 15th century
are essent ia l ly s ingle s torey domed squares surrounded
by a c rown of support ing minor domes . Only some
monumenta l br ick mausolea of the mid-15th century
incorpora ted second s torey walkways , but the ir p lans
and technique appear to derive from fresh sources. At
most perhaps , the Kazaruni complex ant ic ipa tes the
arrangement of mausoleum and funerary mosque - wi th
the two elements facing each other across an open space
- which was cont inued in subsequent Ahmad Shahi
funerary complexes . The pa ired minare ts of a l -
Kazaruni 's tomb complex a lso appear to have had no
immedia te progeny in 14th century Gujara t , doubt less
because the technical skill to build such structures was
only in its infancy. Pseudo-minarets of monumental
propo rt ions pro vided an eas ier , cheaper , and probably
safer solution and are found in practically all later 14th
century mosques in the region.
Howe ve r , a l -Ka z a run i ' s ma us o le um ma y ha ve
engendered a loca l mausoleum type a t Cambay. Del iaValle ment io ns a ma usoleu m, "a high roun d Cu pola , l ike
a tower" on the seafront at Cambay, whilst Forbes
describes see ing severa l "oc tagonal and c i rcular"
mausolea in the suburbs, which all recall the open
airiness of al-Kazaruni 's octagon. Unfortunately, the lack
of fur ther documenta t ion makes i t imposs ible to guess
whe n exact ly th is loca l type de velope d.
In spite of this limited impact, the Friday mosque
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A COLLECTION OF MERITS...
29 . View of the Friday mosque at A hmedabad, 827/1427, showing the minaret pair over the centre of the ί3 ς ^ ε of the prayer hall. Engraved by J.
Shury from an original sketch by James Forbes. (From Forbes, 1834.) (Photograph Courte sy of the Yale Center for British A rt, N ew Haven.)
and Kazaruni complex do raise importan t quest ions
about the extent to which provincial styles interacted
with those at the capital . A number of features that are
generally cited as appearing for the first t ime in Tughluq
buildings in Delhi can be seen in embryonic form at
Cambay and o ther s i tes in western India. The dome and
hvan combinat ion f i rs t seen in Delh i in the Jahanp anah
o r Beg u m p u r m o sq u e co n s t ru c t ed a ro u n d 1 3 4 3 i s
pref igured to some exten t by the Buland Darwaza at
Nag aur dated 733/1333, and (d epe nding on the dat ing)
by the Kazaruni tomb complex 's pishtaq g a t eway an d
domed mausoleum. Moving away f rom Cambay, the
incorporat ion of shops in to the p l in th of a mosque, a
feature first seen in Delhi in the Friday mos que built in
Firuz Shah 's ci tadel of F i ruzabad around 755/1354, i s
anticipated by the level of shops incorporated into the
plinth of the qiblah wal l o f the Fr iday mosque at Bharuch
in 721/1 321. I t i s th is Bharuch m osq ue a gain that
provides an ear ly example of the monumental domed
square gateway approached by f l igh ts of s tai rs on
several sides that so prefigures the gateways of the later
Begampur and the Fi ruzabad mosques in Delh i . Western
India, wi th i t s long-estab l ished t rad i t ion of independent
pat ronage by foreign merchants , may have been an ideal
gateway for the en t ry of new archi tectural ideas and
mode ls in to the Tughluq vocabulary .
Th e Ah m ad Sh ah i l eg acy
But the importance of the Fr iday mosque and Kazaruni
complex also goes wel l beyond the 14th century : l ike
many ear ly monuments in the provinces they represent
the foundations of the later regional style of Islamic
architecture that grew up in Gujarat after the collapse of
the Tughluq Empire in the late 14th century.
The arched faςade screen was en thusiast ical ly
rev ived under the independent Sul tans of Gujarat in the
15th century and set the norm for mo sque p lans for m ore
than a century. The screen was first applied to the
t rabeate prayer hal l o f the mosque bui l t by Ahmad Shah
I in the Bhadra in Ahmedabad in 817/1414, and then
with var iat ions to h is great Fr iday mosque bui l t a t
Ah m e d ab ad in 8 2 7 /1 4 2 4 (F ig . 2 9 ). Su ch wa s t h e
enthu siasm for th is feature that i t wa s appl ied even to
mosques that were too smal l and low to carry i t
comfor tab ly . The Haibat Khan mosque bui l t around 1415
at Ah me dab ad see ms weighed d ow n by the th ick screen
wall across i ts prayer hall , whilst i ts low interior is
rendered dark and g loomy rather than p leasant ly shaded
(Michell and Shah, 1988, Plate 2).
Parad o x ica l l y , h o we v er , i t wa s t h e Kaza ru n i
complex - a funerary complex - tha t wa s to ma ke the
m o s t im p ress iv e co n t r ib u t io n t o Ah m ad Sh ah i m o sq u e
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ELIZABETH LAMBOURN
archi tec ture . The pa ired minare ts in t roduced from Iran
were to mark the Is lamic archi tec ture of Gujara t
indel ib ly . Al though pseudo-minare ts never d ied out , the
Kazaruni complex c lear ly presented a fasc ina t ing
challenge and the first pair of true tower minarets appear
to be those built at Ahmad Shah I 's Friday mosque in
Ahm edab ad (827/1424), wh ere they marked the ra ised
centre of the fagade screen. Though the minare ts
collapsed in the great earthquake of 1819, they were
fortunately recorded in a number of sketches, notably an
etching by James Forbes which show two tall circular
minare ts , wi th mul t ip le ba lconies and a smal l open
pavilion at the top (Fig. 29).4N Their transpo sition from
the entrance gateway of a complex to the fagade screen
of the mo s que m a rks a ne w e m pha s i s w i th in the
mosque .
Though the placement of these pa ired minare ts
evolved over time, being moved to the ends of the
mosque fagade, and the details of their decoration varied
similarly, pairs of tower minarets and large pseudo-
minare ts cont inued to grace the prayers ha l ls of mo sques
a t Ah med abad and a t Cham pane r unt i l the eve of the
Mu ghal co nqu est of Gujarat in 1575. So much so that
whe n 'A l l a m i de s cr ibe d Ahm e da ba d in the A'in-i Akbari,
he noted tha t " the c i ty conta ins one thousand s tone
mosques, each having two minarets" (^Allami, 1927-49,
p. 247). The full h istory of the min aret in western India is
a separate subject, the essential point here is that the twin
minare ts of Gujara t were inspired by the Kazaruni tomb
complex, and go back beyond this to II-Khanid and then
Scljuq Iran. The Kazaruni complex inspired almost the
only - and certainly the stronge st - regional tradition of
tower minarets in India before the Mughal period. 49 The
twin minarets of Gujarat finally complete the complex
"family tree" of Seljuq minarets and their descendants in
the Musl im world .
But the influence of al-Kazaruni 's complex did not
end here . Whilst h is mau soleum does not appear to have
had any direct progeny in funerary architecture beyond
Cambay, the notion of a multi-storeyed, open octagon
was occasionally transposed to the mosque prayer hall .
Thus within the prayer hall of Ahmad Shah's great
Friday m osq ue of 827/1 424 is a three-s torey ed
"pavilion" buttressed by the surrounding fabric of the
pray er hall . The inner p avilion is most clearly visible in
Burgess ' various cross-sections of the prayer hall , at the
first s torey the space under the dome is surrounded by a
squa re walkw ay, with a carved balcony wit h benches
"on which loungers can sit and look down on the floor
and worshippers beneath" (Fig. 30) (Burgess, 1900-05,
vol. 1, p. 33). The com bina tion is also repeated , min us the
minarets , behind the two side arches of the fagade screen
and access to all these upper areas is provided through
the staircases wit hin the screen wall. The central unit - of
screen, minarets and multi-storey pavilion - is an almost
perfect transposition of the pishtaq wi th twin minare ts
and mult i -s toreyed domed oc tagon combinat ion seen a t
Cambay. It is also a subtle reworking of the clerestory
SEC TION IN Pfe R SPEOF THE JAM1 MA S.A M M E D A B A D . O U J A k A T .COI 0.1423.
30 . Section in perspective of the Friday mosque at Ahmedabad, 827/1427, revealing the internal structure of the prayer hall. (From Brown, 1942.)
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"A COLLECTION OF MERITS..."
screen usually built behind the central raised arch of
mosques with fagade screens, as seen in Delhi, then
Cambay and in the ear l ies t Ahmad Shahi mosques . The
idea was not a s imple one-off experiment but
fund ame nta l ly a ffec ted the conce pt ion of Friday
mosques in Gujarat into the early 16th century. The
Friday mosque bui l t a t the new capi ta l of Champaner
between 1508-24 cont inues th is combinat ion and has abe a u ti fu l ope n th re e -s to re y " pa v i l ion" imm e dia t e ly
behind the pishtaq and twin minarets at the centre of its
fagade screen.
The Friday mosque and Kazaruni tomb complex
are t ru ly worthy of the f ie rce archi tec tura l r iva lry
described a t Cambay by lbn Bat tuta . The Friday mosque
is indeed a "wo nderfu l mo sque " and i t i s only a p i ty tha t
the f ine merchant 's houses and so much of the urban
fabric within which these two structures sat has been
los t . There can be no doubt tha t the two bui ldings rank
amongs t the grea t 14th century Is lamic bui ldings in
India, and also deserve to find a place on the wider stage
of medieval Is lamic archi tec ture outs ide thesubc ontin ent. It is a sad reflection of the neglect of Ind ian
Is l a mic a rc h i t e c tu re tha t t he F r ida y mos que a nd
Kazaruni tomb complex have not been subs tant ia l ly
publ ishe d s ince James Burgess ' f irst docu menta t ion over
a century ago.
A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T S
The research on which this article is based was generously funded by the British Academy, the School of Oriental and
African Studies (University of London), the University of London Central Research Fund, and INTACH UK.
NOTES
1 This phrase is a somewhat free translation of a passage fromin Mir'at-i Sikandari of Manjhu ibn Akbar (c. 1020/1611)which describes the patronage of Sultan Mahmud Begadaof Gujarat {late 15th/early 16th century AD) and his effortsin attracting craftsmen and artists from around India andthe Islamic world to the region. The passage concludes withthis observation, "Gujarat, like an accomplished person,
became a collection of merits gather ed from differentsources" (Manjhu ibn Akbar, 1990, p. 69) in Persian: "G ujratnuskhat-i jami
c mithl-i insan-i kamii az takmil-i an hazrat
gasht" (Manjhu ibn Akbar, 1961, pp. 139-401). I haveadhered to the somew hat free English translation because itaccurately conveys the m eaning of the Persian o riginal.
2 Ibn Battuta, 1976, p. 172. For the Arabic original see IbnBattuta, 1914-26, vol. 4, p. 53. The date of Ibn Battuta'sarrival in Cambay is provided by S. Misra, 1982, p. 216.
3 Contemporary historical accounts, both Muslim andHindu, are comparatively unclear about the date of theconquest and this has resulted in a considerable am ount ofconfusion as to when Gujarat came und er perm anent Khaljicontrol. Current scholarly opinion now holds that the finalMuslim conquest and occupation of Gujarat came about in704/1304-05 and not in 1299 as previously believed. Theargument is summarised and reviewed in Desai, 1975.
4 In the central plain of Gujarat fine stone-bu ilt mosq ues havesurvived at: Bharuch (721/1321), Cambay (725/1325),Dholka (two mosq ues, one dated 1333 and the other762/1361), (see Burgess, 1896); also Kapadwanj (772/1370-71) (Burgess, 1900-05, vol. II, pp. 93-94 and plates LXXVIII),Mandal (perhaps 14th century on stylistic grounds, seeBurgess, 1900-05, vol. II, p. 92 and plates LXXV and LXXVI2) and Baroda (perhaps 14th century on stylistic grounds,see H. Goetz, "The Earliest Muslim Monument of Baroda.The Manjalpur mosque". Bulletin of the Baroda State Museum,
IV, 1949, pp. 21-25). Other fine 14th century mosquessurvive in Saurashtra, at Veraval (the Jami' mosque is dated732/1331), at Somnath Patan (the Maipuri mosque ispossibly of 14th century date), at Mangrol (three mosques,the Rahmat mosque dated 784/1382-83, the Jami' mosqueprobably dated 785/1383-84 and the Ravali mosque dated788/1386-87) (C ousens, 1931).
5 The two building s were the object of a brief descriptio nwith plans and photog raphs in James Burgess' 1896 volume
on Gujarati architecture (Burgess, 1896, pp. 23-29 and PlatesXVII - XXIV).6 Mah di Husain , 1957-58, insc .l, pp. 29-34, Plate IX (a). The
inscription has been recorded and edited on a number ofoccasions, see also Burgess, 1885, Appendix, insc. No.l, pp.267-68.
7 Qur'an, surah 72, verse 18 (following the 1924 Caironumbering system).
8 Hadith.9 The correct reading of Dawlatshah Mu ham mad 's nisbah is
still open to interpretation. The major source ofdisagreement has revolved around the problem of whetherthe fourth character should be read as mim or ha', twoletters easily confused in Arabic, and which vowelmodu lates it. The first edited reading of the Cam bay Fridaymosque inscription by Burgess in the late 19th centuryopted for mim and kasrah reading al-Butimari (Burgess,1885, Appendix, insc. No.l, pp. 267-268.) whereas MahdiHusain in a later edited reading preferred the reading al-Butahari with a ha ' and a fathah (Mahdi Husain, 1957-58,insc.l, pp. 29-34, Plate IX (a)). By contrast, on the threeBharuch inscriptions Nazim reads Butmari (see Nazim,1933-34, inscs. No s. 3130, pp. 25-26, Plate XIV (b); No. 3407,p. 26, Plate XIV (c) and No. 3410, p. 27, Plate XV (a)). Theclearest and most fully vowelled rendering of DawlatshahMuhammad's name is in the Bharuch Hdgah inscription of726/1326 where even obvious details such as the shaddah
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ELIZABETH LAMBOURN
over the mini of Muhammad are c learly indicated. Here the
dubious le t ter c learly seems to be a he ' ra ther than a mint
since i ts form compares favourably with the Iw's in the
name of the supervisor Baha a l-Mulk or in the word cahd in
the second and first lines of the same inscription. The
vowell ing is a lso extremely c lear with a kasrah or sh ort " i"
below this part of h is name. The reading would thus be
Bu t iha r i , o r a t Cambay a l -Bu t iha r i . Bu t iha r does no t
correspond to any known locali ty so i t appears unlikely that
h is nisbah was of a geograph ical type, referr ing to his p laceof origin or a place he had a close association with. The
precise type and origin of h is nisbah rema ins to be
identified.
10 This inscription presen ts one major inconsis tency, as Mah di
Husai n r ightly po inted out in h is 1957-58 reading (pp . 31-
34), the text of the inscription s ta tes that the foundation of
the mosque took place in Muharram 725/January 1325
during the re ign of Muhammad ibn Tughluq Shah. Yet
con tempora ry h i s to r ie s ma in ta in tha t he on ly became
Sultan in May or July 1325. This d iscrepancy w ould suggest
e i ther a s imple error on the part of the author of the
inscription or , more probably , that the mosque was founded
in Muharram 72 5/Jan uary 1325 but that the inscription w as
penned a nd p repa red for p lacemen t a num ber o f mon th s
after th is , during the re ign of Sultan Muhammad ibnTughluq.
11 The current minbar has an extremely "ne w" feel about i t and
is se t apart from its contem poraries in o ther Friday mos ques
in Gujarat by being complete ly undecorated. This is h ighly
unusual and i t may be worth considering the possibil i ty
that the minbar is a modern or a t least 19th century
replacement.
12 The remain s of o ther carvin g buil t haphaza rdly in to the
wall above th is entrance suggests that th is whole area
collapsed and was la ter rebuil t . However, there is no
evidence of restoration and the foundation inscription
app ears to hav e been buil t back in to i ts orig inal posit ion. In
the case of the north-west doorway, there is s imilar
ev idence o f co l lapse and rebu i ld ing , in th i s ca se
substantia l ly less of the doorframe has survived and theremaining pieces are ill-fitting.
13 The precise source of th is tone is not know n at pres ent,
however, the s tone is described in another context by James
Forbes as "yellow antique" and the paralle ls between the
two stones are indeed quite close (Forbes, 1834, p. 320).
14 A num ber of the ceil ings are i l lustra ted in M.A. D haky 's
stu dy on ceilings in west ern I ndia , (Dhaky, 1963, Figs. 76,
80 ,87 ,90 ) .
15 He also mentions the veneration of a subsidi ary bu ria l
within the mosque sta t ing that "within the Meschita , in a
narrow dark place by a wall 's s ide , is a k ind of l i t t le
Pyra mid of Marble , and th is they call P ir , that is Old, which
they say is equivalen t to Holy: I imagine i t the sepulchr e of
some one of their Sect accounted such. The people enter in
with great crowds, especial ly Women, who use to be moreforward in these th ings than others . All who go in s trew
Flowers and Rice there; to which end stand divers persons
near the Gate that se l l F lowers to whoso pleases for such
offerings" (della V alle, 1892, p. 69).
16 Unfortunately , I have not been able to f ind out what
damage, if any, the Friday mosque and adjacent tomb
complex suffered during the recent earthquake in Gujarat .
17 For niibahs see en t ry unde r Nisba in the Encyclopaedia of
Islam, 2nd ed., vol. V1I1 where it is explained that "the nisba
or "noun of re la t ion" is one of the components of the
medi aeval Arabic prop er na me. I ts function is to express the
rela t ion of the individual to a group, a person, a p lace, a
conce pt or a thing . It is mo st often prec eded b y the definite
art ic le a l- . Numerous nisbas are employ ed in the con
temporary period in the function of family names."
18 For the inscription of the Bharuch Friday mos que see N azim,
1933-34, insc. No.3130, pp. 25-26 and plate XIV (b); for the
mosque inscription of 722/1322 see insc. No. 3407, p. 26 and
pla te XIV (c).
19 For the namaz garh inscription see Nazim, 1933-34, insc. No.3410, p. 27 and plate XV (a). Namaz garhs are a lso know n as
^idgahs in Persian and as musallas in Arabic.
20 For the Persia n origina l see Lah awr i, 1967-8, vol. 2, p. 607.
21 For a l-Kaza runi 's cenota ph see: Burgess, 1885, pp. 268, insc .
No.6, pp . 274-75, inscs. No. 15 and No . 19; Burgess, 1896, pp .
27-29, plates XXIII-XX1V; AR1E, 1956-57, insc. D 45; Desai,
1971, in scXX, pp . 39-43, plate X (b); ARIE, 1975-76, insc. D
103; Begley, 1985, insc. no. 15. For the cenotaph of his wife
see Bu rgess, 1885, p. 275, inscs. No . 16 and No . 17; Burgess,
1896, p. 28; ARIE, 1956-57, insc. D 46; Desai, 1971, pp . 55-56,
Plate XlV(b). The two cenotaphs are a lso discussed in
Crow e, 1986.
22 In the Muslim world cen otaphs do not actually contain the
bodies of the deceased but only represent their buria l that
must be in the actual earth .23 Ground plans and sections of these two structures in
Burg ess, 1900-05, vol. I, Plates XXXIX, XL, and LV1.
24 The exact pagina tion of th is engra ving varies in every set of
volum es I have consulted. T he page reference c i ted here is
from the set in the British L ibrary (Forbes, 1834, vol. II, Plate
XL1V).
25 Man y example s of both uses in 13th and early 14th century
India in Horovitz, 1911-12 (insc.lll, p. 14, insc.XIX, p. 22,
insc.XXIIl, p. 25, inscs.XXIV, p. 26, insc.XXVIl, p. 28,
insc.XXXIl, p. 30, insc. No. 13, Appendix A, p. 32,), also
Yazdani, 1913-14 (insc.lll, pp. 16-17, insc.1V pp. 17-18,
insc.Vl, pp. 19-22, insc.VIl, pp. 22-23, insc.lX, pp. 25-26,
insc.XI, pp. 27-28, insc.XIL pp. 28-29, insc.XIII, pp. 29-30,
insc.XVI, pp. 32-33) and again Yazdani, 1917-18 (insc.ll, pp.
11-13; insc.lX, p. 19, insc.X, pp. 19-20, insc.XIII, p. 22,inscXXXV, pp . 40-41, insc.XXXVI, pp. 41-42).
26 Addit ion to 725/1325 text only .
27 Al-K azaruni 's nam e app ears in th is context , not because he
himself was the patron of the mihrab but because i t was
donated by one of h is former s laves who was obliged by
custom to c i te h is former master 's name after h is own, see
also Lambourn, 1999, Cat. No. 54.
28 Th e title wa s also in regu lar use at the Bahma ni court in the
Deccan during the early 15th century AD since one Khalaf
Hasan was honoured with the t i t le by Sultan Ahmad Shah
Wali (r.1422-1436 AD) and was replaced in the post by
Khwajah Mahmud Gawan on the access ion o f Humayun
Sha h in 1458 (Majum dar, 1990, p. 265). A related title "Kabir
al-Tujjar" is recorded in Mamluk Egypt where i t was
conferred on of the great Karimi merchants , Zaki a l-Din a l-Kha rrub i in 786/ 1384 (Labib, 1978, pp . 641-642). This sa id,
the t i t le app ears in the epigraph y of Cam bay well before the
Khalji invasion since it features in the epitaph of one
Ibrah im al-Irbili (d.690 /1291) (Desai, 1961, insc.lX, pp . 22-
24 , plat e V (b)).
29 Ibn B attuta, 1914-26, vol. 4, pp . 53-54 for the Arabic original.
30 The is land of Perim has never been fully surveyed al thoug h
the brief mention in the Imperial Gazetteer of India suggests
that, at least at the beginning of this century, the island was
qu i te r i ch in rema ins inc lud ing ru ined temp les and
146 South Asian Studies 17
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A COLLECTION OF MER ITS . .. "
fortifications (Imperial Gazetteer of India, 1909, vol. 1, pp . 265-
66).
31 Ibn Battuta 's accuracy as a reporter of p laces and even ts has
sometimes been questioned but in th is case there are no
reasons to doubt h is narra t ion. Ibn Battuta heard these
detai ls from a personal fr iend of a l-Kazaruni, one Shihab al-
Din Ahmad al-Kazaruni, who had escaped the a t tack and
whom he met la ter a t court in Delhi . Ibn Battuta accurate ly
records a l-Kazaru ni 's nam e and t i t les, and al t houg h thestory of a l-Kazaruni 's murder is not mentioned in other
sources Khwajah Jahan is a well-documented his torical
personage. For deta i ls of Khwajah Jahan Ahmad Ayaz 's
career see W elch and Cra ne, 1983, p. 156; Ibn B attuta, 1976,
footnote 3 , p . 54. He m ay also be mentio ned as govern or of
Gujarat in a mosque foundation text from Prabhas Patan
dated 726/1326 (Desai , 1985, insc . no. 1 in the Junagadh
Museum, pp. 29-31 and plate facing p. 30).
32 See E. Lam bourn, "The Martyrd om of Umar a l-Kazarun i
and his grave a t Cambay in Cujarat (India)" Inscription as
Art in the World of Islam, Hofstra Universi ty , USA,
Conference proceedings in press .
33 Beginning with the tomb of l i tu tmish 's son Nasir a l-Din
Mahmud (d .629 /1231) in De lh i , c
Ala ' a l-Din Khalj i 's
funerary madrasah (Page, 1926), Ghiya th a l-D in Tugh luq 'smausoleum complex in Delhi c . 725/1325, a lso the mosque
and madrasah of Zafar K han at Tribeni in Ben gal (1298 and
715/1315).
34 Only one Iranian Friday mosqu e of the early 14th century
approaches this idea, the Masjid-i Jami at Tabriz (c. 1320)
had a khanqah an d madrasah behind the qiblah wall.
35 Me hta 's s tudy of the topo grap hy of Camba y does not focus
on the seafront (Mehta, 1975).
36 Delia Valle men tions two principal maus olea near the sea
shore and both located quite c lose to the Meschita or
mosque of Cambay. One he describes as "buil t with a great
roof four square , supported by divers p il lars , and under i t a
place open on al l s ides l ike a Porch" which "many persons
came to kiss and venerate" (della Valle, 1892, pp. 69-70).
Ano the r "S epu lch re of a Mah omet an o f qua l i ty " he
describes as located "beyond the above-mentioned Garden,
upo n the Sea-side" with "a high roun d Cup ola , l ike a tower,
which is ascended by a l i t t le ladder, and there you have a
most goodly prospect upon the Sea and Land to a gTeat
dis tance". Whils t the high round cupola of the second
mausoleum init ia l ly appears to correspond to that of a l-
Kazaruni, the fact that i t was reached by a ladde r - w hen al-
Kazaruni 's mausoleum has access s ta ircases buil t within the
gateway - shows that th is cannot be the case . If the four
square roof of the f irs t mausoleum does not correspond to
al-Kazaruni 's octagonal mausoleum, the "divers p il lars"
and open quali ty of th is mausoleum do and i t may be that
della Valle s imply mistook the form of the dome.
Unfortunately , the confusion makes i t impossible to use
della Valle's data.
37 Both sources were incorporated in to the early 15th century
encyclopedia and secretary 's manual, the Suhh al-Acsha fi
Sinacat al-lnsha, writ ten by the Cairene judge Shihab al-Din
al-Qalqashandi and f in ished in 814/1412 (a l-Qalqashandi,
1939, pp . 27-28).
38 For exam ple, the des ign of its mihrab and i t s monum en ta l
s tepp ed entranceway, see Shokoohy, 1993, pp. 107-10, F ig .
45 and plates 31-34.
39 The 721/1321 Friday mosque at Bharuch has no such
screen.
40 For a black and w hit e plate see Shokoo hy, 1987, Fig. 22.
41 As far as can be judge d from the survivin g build ings and
inscriptions a t Cambay, a l-Butihari 's Friday mosque was
the first Friday mosque to be built there after the Muslim
conquest of the region in 704/1304-05. Cambay had, of
course , had a Friday mosque from as early as the la te 10th
century AD to serve the communities of Muslim merchants
that had sett led there aroun d th is date , but a l-Butihari 's was
the f irs t mos que to be buil t af ter the Muslim con quest of the
port .42 The single na'ib was replaced by two governors , one for the
army and another for f inance and revenue. Power in the
province was further d ivided by the in troduction of two
major jagirs appointed directly from Delhi . This quadri
part i te system enabled the Sultan to re ta in far greater
control over events in the region than under a s ingle
governor (S. Misra, 1963, pp. 97-98). A similar process seems
to underl ie the numerous s tone Friday mosques buil t in
Saurashtra during the 1360s to 1380s, the period when th is
western area of Gujarat s ta te was f inally brought under
central control.
43 In a process s imilar to that in Gujarat , the gradua l grow th of
control over Saurashtra f inally encouraged the construction
o f monumen ta l s tone mosques th roughou t the reg ion
mainiy from the 1360s onwards. Though the the Jami 'mosque at Veraval is dated 732/1331 and the Maipuri
mosque at Somnath Patan is of unspecif ied 14th century
date , a t Mangrol three mosques date to the 1360s: the
Rahmat m osque da ted 784 /1382-83 , the Jami ' m osque
probably dated 785/1383-84 and the Ravali mosque dated
788/1386-87.
44 Ih e question of build ing materia ls in Gujarat wil l be the
topic of a forthcoming article entitled "Brick, Timber and
Stone: re thinking Is lamic architecture in western India" .
45 Today, only the four exteri or brick wa lls of the mos que hav e
survived, together with the marble foundation inscription
and marble c lad mihrabs a n d minbar on the qiblah wall. All
the inner supports and the entire roofing system of the
sanctuary ha ve been removed. A description of the m osque
at the end of the last century fortunately records its original
appearance, deta i l ing that the ceil ing was "supported on 32
wo oden pil lars" (B urgess, 1897, p . 96, entry 3) . For a s tu dy
of the Masjid-i Fath and the career of its patron see the
forthcoming art ic le by the author, Lambourn, forthcoming.
46 Dom e and iwan or pishtaq combinations had, in any case ,
long been used in Iran i tse lf in mosque architecture and
other contexts . Many of the principal mosques of the Saljuq
period - those a t Isfahan, Ardistan, Ardabil , Gulpaygan
(c .510 /1116) and S imnan - had monumen ta l domed
chambers fronted by high iwans (H il lenbrand, 1994, pp. 102-
04). The same ideas continued in to the I l-Khanid period and
is seen, for example, in the 715/1315-16 Friday mosque at
Ashtarjan, the (722/1322) mosque at Varamin and a number
of small m osque s (H il lenbrand, 1994, pp. 106-07).
47 The Cifte Minare M edrese of c . 640/1242 in Erzerum , the
656/1258 Sahib 'Ata ' mosque in Konya, the Gok Medrese of
c. 668/1270 at Sivas, and the Cifte Minare Medrese of 1271
in the same town.
48 The reconstruction of these minarets is confirmed by a
second view of the mosque by James Grindlay dated 1809
(Michell and Shah, 1988, plate on p. 15).
49 Alth ough tw in minarets were a lso a feature of several pre-
Mughal mosques a t Burhanpur in Khandesh, their precise
dates and ancestry are not mentioned, see J . Burton-Page,
"Manara - In India" , in Encyclopaedia of Is lam, new ed. ,
vol. VI, p. 361 p. 41.
147
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ELIZABETH LAMBOURN
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