Photo exhibition themed Shahjahanabad: City and Monuments on display at AMU

Aligarh : A fascinating photo exhibition on the theme Shahjahanabad: City and Monuments is on display in the Musa Dakri Museum of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU).

The exhibition displays photos of almost all imperial buildings of the Shahjahanabad Fort, known today as the Red Fort, completed between 1639-48, Akbarabadi Gate (Delhi Darwaza), Lahori Darwaza, Covered Bazaar, Naqqarakhana/Jilaukhana (Forecourt/Drum Room), Hall of the Public Audience Hall (Dawlat-khāna-yikhāṣṣ -u ʿāmm,), or Dīwān-iʿĀmm, Imtiyaz Mahal/Rang Mahal, Mumtaz Mahal, Aramgah, Private Audience Hall (Diwan-i Khas or Dawlat-khāna-yikhāṣṣ , Hammam (Bath), Shah Burj (Royal Tower), Moti Masjid (Pearl Mosque), Hayatbakhsh Garden (life-giving Garden) with its twin pavilions called Sawan and Bhadon. Besides, there are also rare pictures of pavilions of Aʿazzabad Garden known as Shalamar garden, completed in 1650, and remnants of the palace called Sheesh Mahal located in the same garden, in present-day Haiderpur, (New Delhi), completed in 1655.

Besides the photos of Fatehpuri Mosque, completed in 1650, Jāmiʿ Mosque/Masjid-i Jāmiʿ the Friday-Congregational-Mosque, completed in 1650-1656, and ʿĪdgāh (open-air mosque), are also on display in its varied hues and colours for the viewers.

Professor Gulfishan Khan, Coordinator, Musa Dakri Museum and Chairperson, Department of History said that the photos bring to focus the delicate techniques of surface decoration and other architectural details of seventeenth century monuments commissioned by the Emperor Shah Jahan, the architect-emperor of India. The ground-plans are prepared by the cartographer Faiz Habib.

“An aspect worth noting about the exhibition is that it features photographs of the places and monuments as described in the Pādishāh-nāmā by the official historian Shaykh Muhammad Warith in 1648-1657”, Prof Khan added.