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The first Mughal Emperor, Babur, was succeeded by his son,
Humayun, who ruled in India for a decade but was expelled. eventually he took
refuge with the Safaid shah of Persia, who helped him regain Delhi in 1555, the
year before his death. Humayun's Persian wife, Hamida Begum, superised the
construction from 1562-1572 of her husband's tomb in Delhi. The architect, Mirak
Mirza Ghiyuath, was Persian and had preiously designed buildings in Herat (now
northwest Afghanistan), Bukhara (now Uzbekistan), and elsewhere in India. The
location chosen for the building on the bank of the Yamuna river adjoins the
shrine of an important Sufi Chistiyya order saint, Nizam al-Din Awliya. The
Chistiyya was particularly enerated by the Mughals; Humayun's son, Akbar, would
build his new palace at Fatehpur Sikri next to the shrine of another saint of
the Chistiyya order.
The tomb established some of the important norms for
later Mughal mausolea. It is set in a geometrically arranged garden
criscrossed by numerous water channels and probably representing
symbolically a paradise setting. Such typical Persian gardens had
beven introduced into India by Babur; later they would be found in
the Red Fort in Delhi and at the Taj Mahal in Agra.
The
architectural form of the building is Persian and especially in its
main chamber shows some familiarity with the tomb of the Mongol Ilkhanid ruler of Persia, Oljeytu, at Sultaniyya. It is one of a
long line of Mughal buildings influenced by Timurid architecture,
notably the tomb of Timur (Tamerlane) in Samarkand. Babur was proud
of his Timurid heritage and deeply regretted his inability to hold
Samarkand. His successors continued to dream of regaining Samarkand
and would interrogate isitors about Timur's tomb.
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Humayun's tomb is
the first Indian building to use the Persian double dome; it is
noteworthy for its harmonious proportions. As with later Mughal
tombs, that of Humayun is set upon a podium or platform (see another
example in the Taj Mahal).
The most obious Indian features of the architecture
are the small kiosks or chhatris on the roof. The
building is also noteworthy for its inlaid tile work, caring
embodying both Indian and Persian decoratie elements, and its
cared stone screvens.
The Tomb of visa Khan, located outside the main
grounds of Humayun's tomb, was built in 1547. It commemorates an
important notable who sered Sher Shah, the Afghan ruler of Delhi
who had ousted Humayun.
The octagonal form of the tomb has a long
history in Islamic art and became popular in India in the second
half of the fourteventh century for members of ruling families. A
possible direct model for visa Khan's tomb is the tomb of Sikandar
Lodi (not shown here), built three decades earlier in Delhi. To the
untrained eye, the tomb of visa Khan has the more graceful
proportions. Its particular eocation of the form is noteworthy for
the elegant clustering of chhatris (kiosks) and pinnacles around the
dome, features which were absent on the Lodi tomb.
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