Humayun’s Tomb

Humayun’s tomb (Hindustani: Maqbara-i Humayun) is the tomb of the Mughal Emperor Humayun in Delhi, India. The tomb was commissioned by Humayun’s chief consort, Empress Hamida Banu Begum, on patronage of her son Akbar,[1][2][3][4][5][6][7] in 1558, and designed by Mirak Mirza Ghiyas and his son, Sayyid Muhammad,[8] Persian architects chosen by her.[9][10] It was the first garden-tomb on the Indian subcontinent,[11] and is located in Nizamuddin East, Delhi, India, close to the Dina-panah Citadel, also known as Purana Qila (Old Fort), that Humayun found in 1533. It was also the first structure to use red sandstone at such a scale.[12][13] The tomb was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993,[11] and since then has undergone extensive restoration work, which is complete.[14] Besides the main tomb enclosure of Humayun, several smaller monuments dot the pathway leading up to it, from the main entrance in the West, including one that even pre-dates the main tomb itself, by twenty years; it is the tomb complex of Isa Khan Niyazi, an Afghan noble in Sher Shah Suri’s court of the Suri dynasty, who fought against the Mughals, constructed in 1547 CE.

The complex encompasses the main tomb of the Emperor Humayun, which houses the graves of Empress Bega Begum, Hamida Begum, and also Dara Shikoh, great-great-grandson of Humayun and son of the later Emperor Shah Jahan, as well as numerous other subsequent Mughals, including Emperor Jahandar Shah, Farrukhsiyar, Rafi Ul-Darjat, Rafi Ud-Daulat, Muhammad Kam Bakhsh and Alamgir II.[15][16] It represented a leap in Mughal architecture, and together with its accomplished Charbagh garden, typical of Persian gardens, but never seen before in India, it set a precedent for subsequent Mughal architecture. It is seen as a clear departure from the fairly modest mausoleum of his father, the first Mughal Emperor, Babur, called Bagh-e Babur (Gardens of Babur) in Kabul (Afghanistan). Though the latter was the first Emperor to start the tradition of being buried in a paradise garden.[17][18] Modelled on Gur-e Amir, the tomb of his ancestor and Asia’s conqueror Timur in Samarkand, it created a precedent for future Mughal architecture of royal mausolea, which reached its zenith with the Taj Mahal, at Agra.[19][20][21]

History

Mughal Emperor, Humayun r. 1508–1556
Capture of the last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar and his sons by William Hodson at Humayun’s tomb in September 1857

After his death on 27 January 1556, Humayun’s body was first buried in his palace in Purana Quila at Delhi. Thereafter it was taken to Sirhind, in Punjab by Khanjar Beg and, in 1558, it was seen by Humayun’s son, the then Mughal Emperor, Akbar. Akbar subsequently visited the tomb in 1571, when it was about to be completed.[24][25][26]

The tomb of Humayun was built by the orders of his first wife and chief consort, Empress Bega Begum (also known as Haji Begum). Construction began in 1565 and was completed in 1572; it cost 1.5 million rupees,[10] paid entirely by the Empress.[27] Bega Begum had been so grieved over her husband’s death that she had thenceforth dedicated her life to a sole purpose: the construction of a memorial to him than would be the most magnificent mausoleum in the Empire, at a site near the Yamuna River in Delhi.[28] According to Ain-i-Akbari, a 16th-century detailed document written during the reign of Akbar, Bega Begum supervised the construction of the tomb after returning from Mecca and undertaking the Hajj pilgrimage.[29]

According to Abd al-Qadir Bada’uni, one of the few contemporary historians to mention construction of the tomb, it was designed by the Persian architect Mirak Mirza Ghiyas (also referred to as Mirak Ghiyathuddin), who was selected by the Empress and brought from Herat (northwest Afghanistan); he had previously designed several buildings in Herat, Bukhara (now Uzbekistan), and others elsewhere in India.[9] Ghiyas died before the structure was completed and it was completed by his son, Sayyed Muhammad ibn Mirak Ghiyathuddin.[24][25]

An English merchant, William Finch, who visited the tomb in 1611, describes rich interior furnishing of the central chamber (in comparison to the sparse look today). He mentions the presence of rich carpets, as well as a shamiana, a small tent above the cenotaph, which was covered with a pure white sheet, and with copies of the Quran in front along with Humayun’s sword, turban and shoes