The reign of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan witnessed the construction of perhaps the most famous monuments of Mughal architecture (the Taj Mahal, the Red Fort, Jama Masjid, etc.). Why was this the case? At our Online Talk #BeyondTheTaj, historian Ali Anooshahr draws on previous studies as well as Persian sources from the 17th century to highlight the political, economic, and “ideological” trends that led up to this phenomenon, focussing on the economic growth that created the needed wealth for architectural patronage, and the centralisation of power on the body of the emperor and his direct female relatives (wife and daughters) that made the queen a worthy subject of a grand mausoleum. He also queries the notion of “beauty” in these structures as “beauty” was a primary goal of the project, tied to a “political ideology” that divinised the emperor and meant to make his subjects love him.

About the speaker:

Ali Anooshahr is a historian of Mughal India as well as the "Persianate world" during the early modern era. He received his B.A. from the University of Texas at Austin in 1998, and his M.A. (2002) and Ph.D. (2005) from UCLA. He is a Professor of History at the University of California, Davis. He is on the editorial board of the Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient. His research has been supported by fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Mellon Foundation, and the Hellman Foundations, among others.