Person · architect & prime minister · India
Mir Momin Astrabadi
Also known as Mir Momin Astrābādī, Mir Mohammed Momin Astarabadi
Iranian émigré from Astarabad in Mazandaran who served as prime minister (peshwa) to Sultan Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah of Golconda from 1584 and designed the city plan of Hyderabad when the sultan laid it out in 1591. Mir Momin is credited with the orthogonal grid of four axial bazaars radiating from the Charminar — a Persianate urbanism closer to Isfahan than to any contemporary Indian city — and probably also with the Charminar's own design. The Dar al-Shifa hospital of 1595 and the Mecca Masjid foundations likewise sit under his direction.
- Date
- 1550–1625
- Function
- Authority & administration
- Patron dynasty
- Qutb Shahi
- Tradition
- Qutb Shahi court chronicles; George Michell on Deccan Sultanate architecture; studies of Safavid-Deccani urban exchange.
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
Worth knowing
Mir Momin's descendants, the Astrabadi family, remained courtiers through the Qutb Shahi period; he was buried near the Mir Momin Daira in the walled city. His city plan — a square with the Charminar at the centre and bazaars running north, south, east and west to four gates — survived unchanged until the twentieth century.
About the place
Placed at Hyderabad, the city he designed and the court where he served
Connections (2)
- Architect ofHyderabad
Mir Momin Astrabadi, an Iranian émigré from Mazandaran who served as peshwa to Sultan Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah from 1584, designed the city plan of Hyderabad when the sultan laid it out in 1591. The orthogonal grid of four axial bazaars radiating from the Charminar to four gates — the plan Hyderabad kept for three centuries — is credited to him, as is the probable design of the Charminar itself. His home, the Mir Momin Daira, stood in the walled city.
- Architect ofChārmīnār
The Charminar's four-arch four-minaret design is traditionally and in the main scholarly accounts attributed to Mir Momin Astrabadi, the Iranian émigré prime minister of Sultan Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah who also designed the Hyderabad city plan. The monument stands at the exact centre of the orthogonal bazaar grid he laid out, as the gateway at the crossroads of the four axial streets — one architectural act realising one urban plan.