Nitin Sharma A TO Z INDIA ● DECEMBER 2021 ● PAGE 5 Quwwat ul-Islam Mosque, 1190s, Delhi, India The tomb that exhibits a blend of Hindu & Islamic influenc es: Qutb was a fanatical Muslim. When his garrison occupied Delhi under the command of Muhammed Ghari in 1192, he ordered the destruction of twenty-seven Hindu and Jain temples to furnish building materials for the construction of Delhi's first mosque. Quwwat-ul-Islam, the "Glory of Islam," was hastily erected by the young Amir, who conscripted an army of local craftsmen, presumably Hindus, to assembl e the structure. The Hindu stonemasons repurposed columns from the destroyed temples, but adapting them to use in a mosque proved problematic given Islam's injunction against the use of images in temples. The masons were forced to plaster over the highly sculpted Hindu columns and presumably cover them with geometric designs. However, after centuries of neglect the plaster has fallen away, revealing t he original Hindu carvings. Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque (built 1192-1316) Quwwat-ul-Islam was sponsored by Qutb-ud-din Aibak, founder of the Mamluk dynasty. Born a slave in Turkey, Qutb rose to prominence as a general during Muhammed Ghari's invasion of India in the 1180s. After Muhammed's assassination in 1206, Qutb seized the throne and crowned himself Sultan of the Mamluk dynasty, often disparagingly called the "Slave Dynasty" after Qutb's origins. Although the dynasty lasted for only a few centuries, Muslim rule in India endured up to the British occuption in 1858.