Safdarjung’s Tomb

Mirza Muqim Abul Mansur Khan, known by his title Safdar Jang, was a nephew (his sister’s son) and son-in-law of Saadat Khan Burhan al-Mulk, governor of Awadh, and on Saadat Khan’s death the Mughal emperor Muhammad Shah appointed him his successor^1,2,6. Under Emperor Ahmad Shah (r. 1748-1754) he became wazir, the empire’s chief minister^1,2,3,4. Court intrigues later forced him from office, and he withdrew to Awadh, where he died in 1754^2,3. His body was brought to Delhi for burial². His son, Nawab Shuja-ud-Daula, built the tomb in about 1754, under the supervision of Bilal Muhammad Khan, at a cost of three lakh (300,000) rupees^1,2.

A marble slab over the eastern entrance gives the Hijri year of his death, 1167, in a chronogram that begins “When that hero of the plain of bravery departed from the transitory world”². The vault beneath the tomb holds his grave and a second one said to be that of his wife, Khujista Banu Begam². Nineteenth-century European travellers described and drew the tomb, which stood beside the road from Delhi to the Qutb³; Bishop Heber likened its mix of red and buff stone to “potted meat”². The ASI quotes a description of it as “the last flicker in the lamp of Mughal architecture at Delhi”¹.

The tomb follows the model of Humayun’s tomb on a smaller scale^1,2,5. It stands at the centre of a walled charbagh, a garden divided into quarters by broad causeways with long water tanks down their middle^1,2,3. The only entrance is a two-storey gateway in the east wall^2,3. Arcaded pavilions mark the middle of the other three walls; the ASI’s 1919 list names them Jangli Mahal (west), Moti Mahal (north) and Badshah Pasand (south)². A three-domed mosque stands on an upper level just north of the gateway; both the 1919 list and Archnet suggest it was an afterthought^2,3. The garden wall, about 18 ft (5.5 m) high, has octagonal towers at the corners and arched recesses along its inner face².

The mausoleum is a square, two-storey building on a high arcaded platform, with a nine-part plan: a central chamber ringed by eight rooms^1,2,3. Each façade has a tall central arch framed in marble, with smaller cusped arches on two levels at either side^2,3. Polygonal towers with balconies and kiosks mark the corners². The bulbous dome, faced with marble, rises from a sixteen-sided drum of red sandstone^1,2. The ASI says that much of the red and buff sandstone facing was stripped from the tomb of Abdul Rahim Khan-i-Khanan, whereas its 1919 list says this of the marble^1,2. Bengal-style curved roofs line the recesses of the entrance arches². The ASI finds the ornament exaggerated and the proportions too vertical¹.

Inside, the central chamber holds a plain marble cenotaph; the graves themselves are in the vault below². The chamber has a marble dado, and the walls above it are covered with plaster ornament; the ceiling, about 40 ft (12 m) above the marble floor, is the underside of a flattish inner dome². Archnet notes stucco carving with white marble inlay, and plaster polished until it looks almost like marble³. Eight rooms, four oblong and four octagonal, surround the chamber on each of the two floors².