![]() ![]() ![]() The enclosed courtyard in front of the mosque is fringed by a series of covered cells and once functioned as a madrasa. ![]() To the right of the gateway is a three-domed mosque, its domes decorated with broad bands of red and yellow sandstone. The water channels would still have been there, as they were an important feature of Mughal garden design. Unlike the carefully manicured lawns and well-tended flowerbeds the tomb sports today, the gardens of the eighteenth century would probably have had more trees and bushes. On the second storey of the gateway (but not accessible to casual visitors) is a baradari or pavilion, which offersĪ fine view across the gardens of the tomb complex. The solid wooden door of the gateway dates back to the time when the tomb was built in ad 1754. The central portion of the façade consists of a beautiful arch, decorated in a form known as net vaulting, finished with plaster painted in lovely shades of red and blue. The entrance to the tomb complex is from the east, through a double-storeyed pavilion with an arched stone façade. Pasand to the south, and the Junglee Mahal (once a shikargah or hunting lodge, the source of its name) to the west. On three sides of the mausoleum are large pavilions: the Moti Mahal to the north, the Baadshah Surrounded by a wall, Safdarjung’s Tomb sits in the centre of a typically Mughal char bagh garden, with water channels dividing the surrounding square garden into four equal quarters. One vanquished at the decisive Battle of Buxar against the British), the construction being supervised by an Abyssinian architect named Billal Mohammad Khan. It was built by Safdarjung’s son Shuja-ud-daula (the His body was brought back to Delhi in ad 1754 to be interred in a mausoleum that is one of the last major garden tombs of Mughal Delhi ‘the last dying flicker of Mughal architecture’, as it has been described. ![]() Safdarjung was eventually dismissed by Ahmad Shah and died in Lucknow. While in Delhi, Safdarjung did all he could to feather his nest, and is rumoured to have instigated the Persian invader Nadir Shah to attack Delhi. The son of the first Subedar of Awadh, Safdarjung became the Nawab of Awadh, and later the wazir of the country, during the rule of the Mughal emperors Mohammad Shah `Rangeela’ and Ahmad Shah `Albela’. Nawab Mirza Muqim Abul Mansur Khan, better known by his title, Safdarjung, traced his ancestry to the city of Nishabad in Iran (the famous poet Omar Khayyam was a scion of the same city). ![]()
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