SAFDAR JUNGS'S TOMB

Safdar Jung, or Abul Mansul Mirza Muhammad Ali Khan, was the Nawab (Viceroy under the Mughal Emperor) of Oudh (most of the Northern plains of India) from 19th March 1739 to 5th October 1754. He was a good military commander and during the final years of Muhammad Shah (a weak Mughal Emperor), he gained a lot of power in the Mughal court. When Ahmed Shah Bahadur (another weak Mughal Emperor) ascended to power, Safdar Jung was made the Wazier-ul-Malik, or Vizier (Prime Minister). Over the next few years he cemented and grew his power in the court. Eventually, he reduced the emperor to a figurehead and took all the power for himself. To rid himself of his Vizier, the Emperor asked the Marathas to invade Delhi, which they did in 1753. Safdar Jung died a year later, and his son Shuja-ud-Daula (who would later be a key figure in the Battle of Buxar) constructed a tomb for him in Delhi.

The tomb is a grand structure, surrounded by a large garden which was divided into a Charbagh pattern (A rectangular garden in a symmetrical pattern, quartered by waterways. Each quarter was meant to be a part of paradise in the Quran). There is a mosque on the right and the central path is surrounded by tanks and fountains, which eventually lead to the mausoleum. The mausoleum is a square, 2 floored structures built on a raised base with 4 corner towers and with a massive marble dome surmounting the whole structure.

The main structure and base are masonry structures, made of red and buff sandstone (stripped from Abdul Rahim’s tomb, a poet from Humayun’s age), The towers have marble panels and the whole mausoleum is excessively filled with ornaments. The whole tomb has not been regarded as an equal to Humayun’s tomb and the Taj Mahal because of its bad proportions (the vertical axis) and bad quality materials, but it is nevertheless probably the last Mughal-era tomb of its type.