Qutub Minar : A famous historical monuments of India.
One of the old and famous historical monuments of India is Qutub Minar, which was built in 1193. This is a soaring 73 meters tall tower and is the highest stone minaret in the world and second tallest minaret in India after Fateh Burj (100 meters). Qutub Minar is a five-storied tower with a base diameter of 14.32 meters, and it contains 379 stairs that reach the top of diameter about 2.75 meters. The minaret has five distinct stories surrounded by a projected balcony encircling the tower.
Qutub Minar was built being inspired by the Minaret of Jam in Afghanistan; hence the Afghani and Indo-Islamic Architecture is evident in the design of the tower. The interiors of Qutub Minar have Quran verses intricately carved on the walls. A beautiful garden surrounds this tower, and it is located in the Qutub Complex of Seth Serai, Mehrauli region of New Delhi, along with several other ruins of historical monuments that are also present inside the complex. The first mosque of India, Quwwat-ul-Islam Masjid, is located on the north-east side of the Qutub Minar and was built in 1198.
The reason behind the building of Qutub Minar was the victory of the Ghurid Dynasty emperor Qutub-ud-Din Aibek over the last Hindu ruler Rajput Prithviraj Chauhan of Delhi. Qutub-ud-Din Aibek is also the founder of Delhi’s sultanate rule, and their victory marked the beginning of Muslim rule in India; hence Qutub Minar is also called the ‘Tower of Victory.’
Earlier the courtyard consisted of 27 Hindu and Jain temples which were demolished by Qutub-ud-Din Aibek after capturing the throne. Qutub-ud-Din Aibek started the construction of Qutub Minar, for the use of muazzin (crier) to give calls for prayers, but he could only build the basement and raise the first storey of the tower. Then his son-in-law and successor Shams-ud-Din Iltutmish continued the construction and made the tower of three stories. Till this, the tower was made of red sandstone and marble.
A lighting incident demolished the top floor, and it was Firoz Shah Tughlak, who took the responsibility to renovate it in 1368 and added two more stories made of white sandstone and marble. After that, he also built a cupola (a dome top) above the fifth floor i.e., the last storey of the tower. But in 1802, the dome fell because of an earthquake, and the whole tower was damaged. It was Major R. Smith (a Royal Engineer of the British Empire) who restored the Qutub Minar and replaced the top position of the cupola with a Bengali-style ‘Chattri’ in 1823. In 1993, UNESCO added Qutub Minar to the list of World Heritage Sites in India.
