Ustad Ahmad Lahori ( fa, ) was an architect from the

South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth descr ...

-based

Mughal Empire The Mughal Empire was an early-modern empire that controlled much of South Asia between the 16th and 19th centuries. Quote: "Although the first two Timurid emperors and many of their noblemen were recent migrants to the subcontinent, the d ...

, who is said to have been the chief architect of the

Taj Mahal The Taj Mahal (; ) is an Islamic ivory-white marble mausoleum on the right bank of the river Yamuna in the Indian city of Agra. It was commissioned in 1631 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan () to house the tomb of his favourite wife, Mu ...

Agra Agra (, ) is a city on the banks of the Yamuna river in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, about south-east of the national capital New Delhi and 330 km west of the state capital Lucknow. With a population of roughly 1.6 million, Agra i ...

, built between 1632 and 1648 during the rule of the Emperor Shah Jahan. Its architecture is a combination of Indo-Islamic and

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

architectural styles, and thus a major example of Indo-Persian culture. It is widely praised around the world, enabling it to be listed among the

Wonders of the World Various lists of the Wonders of the World have been compiled from antiquity to the present day, in order to catalogue the world's most spectacular natural features and human-built structures. The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World is the o ...

Life

Edwin Lord Weeks - The Taj Mahal - Walters 37316

The

nisba The Arabic language, Arabic word nisba (; also transcribed as ''nisbah'' or ''nisbat'') may refer to: * Arabic nouns and adjectives#Nisba, Nisba, a suffix used to form adjectives in Arabic grammar, or the adjective resulting from this formation **c ...

"Lahori" indicates that he came from

Lahore Lahore ( ; pnb, ; ur, ) is the second most populous city in Pakistan after Karachi and 26th most populous city in the world, with a population of over 13 million. It is the capital of the province of Punjab where it is the largest city ...

, present day

Punjab Punjab (; Punjabi: پنجاب ; ਪੰਜਾਬ ; ; also romanised as ''Panjāb'' or ''Panj-Āb'') is a geopolitical, cultural, and historical region in South Asia, specifically in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, comprising a ...

Pakistan Pakistan ( ur, ), officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan ( ur, , label=none), is a country in South Asia. It is the world's fifth-most populous country, with a population of almost 243 million people, and has the world's second-lar ...

, in the

. He has been described as Punjabi or a Persian. Shah Jahan's court histories emphasize his personal involvement in the construction and it is true that, more than any other Mughal emperor, he showed the greatest interest in building new magnificent buildings, holding daily meetings with his architects and supervisors. The court chronicler Lahori, writes that Shah Jahan would make "appropriate alterations to whatever the skillful architects had designed after considerable thought and would ask the architects competent questions."Koch, p.89 In writings by Lahori's son, Lutfullah Muhandis, two architects are mentioned by name; Ustad Ahmad LahoriTaj Mahal Description and Profile (Ahmad Lahori, architect of the emperor)
UNESCO.org website, Retrieved 17 November 2021Begley and Desai (1989), p.65 and Mir Abd-ul Karim.Asher, p.212 Ustad Ahmad Lahori had laid the foundations of the

Red Fort The Red Fort or Lal Qila () is a historic fort in Old Delhi, Delhi in India that served as the main residence of the Mughal Emperors. Emperor Shah Jahan commissioned construction of the Red Fort on 12 May 1638, when he decided to shift ...

at Delhi (built between 1638 and 1648). Mir Abd-ul Karim had been the favourite architect of the previous emperor Jahangir and is mentioned as a supervisor, together with Makramat Khan, for the construction of the Taj Mahal. Lahori had three sons:

Ataullah Ataullah ( ar, عطا ٱلله) or the alternative Atallah is an Arabic given name meaning "gift of God", composed of '' Ata'' (''gift'') + ''Allah'' (''God''). It is also a surname to Middle Eastern Christians, derived from the Aramaic form ''Att ...

(or Ata Allah Rashidi), Luftullah (or Lutf Allah Muhandis) and Nur Allah (or Nur Allah), who were also involved in architecture besides other fields such as mathematics.

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* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lahori, Ahmad, Ustad Mughal architecture Taj Mahal Year of birth unknown Year of death unknown Mughal Empire people People from Lahore 17th-century Indian architects

Life

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