The Taj Mahal

Shah Jahan commissioned the Taj Mahal in 1631 following the death of his wife, Mumtaz Mahal, who died giving birth to their fourteenth child. The mausoleum was completed in 1648, though work on the surrounding complex — which includes a mosque, a guest house, and formal gardens within a walled enclosure of seventeen hectares — continued until 1653. The tomb houses both Mumtaz Mahal and Shah Jahan himself, who was interred there after his death in 1666.

The building sits on the right bank of the Yamuna River in Agra. It is constructed almost entirely of white marble, with red sandstone used for ancillary structures in the complex, following the material conventions of Mughal architecture in the mid-seventeenth century. The design is organised around strict bilateral symmetry: the mausoleum stands at the centre of a cross-axial plan, with identical structures mirrored on either side.

The project employed more than twenty thousand workers and artisans, overseen by a board of architects led by Ustad Ahmad Lahori, the emperor's court architect. The team was multinational and included specialists from across the Mughal, Ottoman and Persian spheres: Ismail Afandi designed the dome, Amanat Khan Shirazi executed the calligraphy, and masons and inlay craftsmen came from as far as Bukhara and Shiraz. The cost at the time was estimated at thirty-two million rupees.

What distinguishes the Taj Mahal within Mughal architecture is the extent to which optical corrections have been embedded in the design. The calligraphy that frames the main portal increases in letter height as it rises, so that from the ground each line appears uniform. The minarets tilt outward by a small angle, a precaution against collapse that reads as verticality from below. The dome is slightly bulbous rather than hemispherical, which prevents it from appearing squat when viewed from a distance.

These adjustments are not innovations — earlier Islamic and classical architecture employed similar techniques — but their application here is comprehensive and disciplined. The building is engineered to be perceived as geometrically perfect, and the engineering required to achieve that perception is hidden within the structure itself.

The pietra dura inlay is likewise a technique imported and then elaborated. Thin slices of semi-precious stone — cornelian, lapis, jade, turquoise — are cut to fit recessed channels in the marble, forming floral patterns, arabesques and calligraphic panels. The colours do not fade and the edges remain sharp centuries later, which is the material advantage of using stone rather than pigment. The decoration is dense but never crowded; the white marble ground holds the composition in balance.

The first ceremony at the mausoleum was held on 6 February 1643, marking the twelfth anniversary of Mumtaz Mahal's death. Shah Jahan observed it in person. The building has remained in continuous use as a tomb and monument since completion, administered first by Mughal authorities, later by British colonial administration, and since 1947 by the Archaeological Survey of India. It was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983 and receives more than five million visitors annually.