The articles by John Burton-Page on Indian Islamic architecture assembled in this volume give an historical overview of the subject, ranging from the mosques and tombs erected by the Delhi sultans in the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries, to the great monuments of the Mughals in the 16th and 17th centuries.

This book reinterprets the Muslim architecture and urban planning of South India, looking beyond the Deccan to the regions of Tamil Nadu and Kerala - the historic coasts of Coromandel and Malabar. For the first time a detailed survey of the Muslim monuments of the historic ports and towns demonstrates a rich and diverse architectural tradition entirely independent from the better known architecture of North India and the Deccan sultanates. The book, extensively illustrated with photographs and architectural drawings, widens the horizons of our understanding of Muslim India and will no doubt pave new paths for future studies in the field.

This book entitled 'Indo-Islamic Architecture Delhi & Agra' contains a brief history of Islam, its advent in India, political history of Sultans of Delhi and Mughals, architectural and decorative elements and then it covers 32 monuments which were constructed in Delhi and Agra during the Delhi Sultanate and Mughal period. All these monuments have been photographically covered and described by the author giving background of the builders, plants, sizes, different views of the structures so that the readers can understand the monument in a better way.

This work analyzes the Islamic ritual buildings of western India as innovations of the local architectural tradition. These buildings themselves forged new senses of community, initiating processes of social integration and redefinition among Muslim and non-Muslim groups in the region.

Muslim contribution towards evolving and perpetuating a distinctive style of architecture in the South Asian subcontinent has been epoch-making. Different and divergent from its local counterpart, the style was essentially a synthesized assimilation of foreign as well as local elements, which together created marvels both of religious and secular buildings. While foreign elements were introduced by the Arabs, Persians, Turks, and the Central Asians, local characteristics were borrowed from the Hindu-Jaina temples and Buddhist monastic establishments. The Muslims built their habitats according to the dictates of their faith, their taste and resources, and in accordance with the prevailing climatic conditions, availability of materials, and proficiency of technical know-how. During the last hundred years several art and architectural historians have described and evaluated the birth, adolescence, and maturity of these styles. However, a cumulative of the exploration and excavation of several archaeological sites and surveys of hitherto unknown or little known standing monuments, was yet to be attempted. The present book gives a resume of these efforts and researches, putting it in chronological perspective and geographical sequence. The material researched and illustrated by the architectural historians and published in the annual reports, memoirs and journals of the old Archaeological Survey of India and the Pakistan Department of Archaeology, has been generously and extensively adapted and included in the text. For the first time, after analytical treatment it has been presented in order to give a comprehensive picture of Islamic architecture in South Asia, up to the time of the decline and extinction of the grand Moghul Empire.

Michael Barry's text draws on a wealth of historical, technical and iconographic information to illuminate the history and meaning of these remarkable decorations.

The architecture created in southern Asia under the patronage of the great Mughals (1526-1858) is one of the richest and most inventive of the Islamic area, including such world famous buildings as the Taj Mahal in Agra or the tomb of Humayun in Delhi, the palaces and mosques in Agra, Delhi, Fatehpur Sikri and Lahore. All buildings types are considered, not only the well known masterpieces but also country houses, hunting palaces, gardens, mausoleums, mosques, bath houses, bazaars and other public buildings. Many of these are still unknown even to specialists. The unique book, covering the whole range of Mughal architecture and including numerous new photographs and detailed plans presents the results of the author's extensive field work in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh as well as Iran and the central Asian region of the Soviet Union. The author's in-depth knowledge of the original sources provides the reader with invaluable background information.

Bayana in Rajasthan, and its monuments, challenge the perceived but established view of the development of Muslim architecture and urban form in India. At the end of the twelfth century, early conquerors took the mighty Hindu fort, building the first Muslim city below on virgin ground. They later reconfigured the fort and constructed another town within it. These two towns were the centre of an autonomous region during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Going beyond a simple study of the historic, architectural and archaeological remains, this book takes on the wider issues of how far the artistic traditions of Bayana, which developed independently from those of Delhi, later influenced north Indian architecture. It shows how these traditions were the forerunners of the Mughal architectural style, which drew many of its features from innovations developed first in Bayana.

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