Place · Sultanate victory minaret · India
Qutb Minar
Also known as Qutb Minar, Qutub Minar, Qutab Minar
Seventy-three-metre sandstone-and-marble minaret at Mehrauli, begun by Qutb-ud-Din Aibak in 1199 as a victory tower marking the Delhi Sultanate's foundation and the mosque beside it, continued by Iltutmish who added three storeys and completed it, repaired after a lightning strike by Firoz Shah Tughlaq in 1368 (who added the fifth storey in white marble), and still the tallest brick minaret in the world. The tapering fluted shaft carries bands of Kufic and Naskh Quranic inscription at each storey transition; the balconies' muqarnas corbels are the earliest substantial examples in the subcontinent. UNESCO 1993.
- Date
- 1199–1368
- Function
- Religious institution & practice
- Patron dynasty
- Mamluk · Tughlaq
- Tradition
- ASI conservation records; Catherine Asher, Architecture of Mughal India; UNESCO inscription file.
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 28.524, 77.186
Worth knowing
Its design is modelled on the Minaret of Jam in central Afghanistan built around 1190 by the Ghurid sultan whose armies founded the Delhi Sultanate — so the Qutb Minar and the Jam minaret are a Ghurid architectural pair, one at each end of the dynasty's reach. The 1368 lightning repairs introduced the marble that gives the top two storeys their lighter colour. A spiral staircase of 379 steps leads to the top; it has been closed to the public since 1981 after a stampede killed forty-five schoolchildren.
Connections (6)
- Site adjacencyAlai Minar
The Alai Minar stands directly north of the Qutb Minar within the Alai extension of the Quwwat-ul-Islam enclosure — Alauddin Khilji intended it to replace and surpass the Qutb Minar beside it, as a doubled architectural statement of his sultanate's claim over the Mamluk one that preceded it. The two minarets together frame the Khilji-period expansion of the complex, with the Qutb Minar as the Mamluk anchor and the Alai Minar as the unfinished Khilji ambition.
- Built byQutb-ud-Din Aibak
Qutb-ud-Din Aibak began the Qutb Minar in 1199 as a victory tower marking the Delhi Sultanate's foundation and the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque alongside it. He completed only the ground storey before his death at Lahore in 1210; the minaret is named for him. His design — a tapering fluted shaft rising from a stepped plinth, modelled on the Ghurid Minaret of Jam in central Afghanistan — set the Delhi Sultanate's monumental type.
- Completed byShams-ud-Din Iltutmish
Iltutmish continued the Qutb Minar after Qutb-ud-Din Aibak's 1210 death, adding three storeys and completing the minaret during his 1211–1236 reign — the balconies' muqarnas corbels and the Kufic-Naskh Quranic inscriptions at the storey transitions are from his phase. The minaret as it stood through the medieval period is almost entirely Iltutmish's work; Firoz Shah Tughlaq added the fifth marble storey only in 1368 after lightning damage.
- Architectural modelMinaret of Jam
The Qutb Minar's design comes directly from the Minaret of Jam in central Afghanistan — the Ghurid sultan Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad's victory tower of about 1190, whose tapering brick shaft, Kufic tile inscriptions and fluted stages Aibak's masons replicated in sandstone at Delhi within a decade. The two minarets are a Ghurid architectural pair, one at each end of the dynasty's reach from central Afghanistan to the newly conquered Delhi.
- Site withinQutb complex, Delhi
The Qutb Minar is the central structure of the Qutb complex at Mehrauli — the minaret stands at the southwest corner of the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque's courtyard, with the Iron Pillar in the courtyard, the Alai Darwaza to the south and the Alai Minar's unfinished stump to the north. The complex is named for the minaret, which is itself named for Qutb-ud-Din Aibak.
- Site adjacencyAlai Darwaza
The Alai Darwaza stands immediately south of the Qutb Minar inside the Qutb complex — Alauddin Khilji's 1311 Khilji-period gateway framing the Mamluk Qutb Minar across the Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque courtyard, with the unfinished Alai Minar to the north of the minaret. The Khilji buildings together frame the central Mamluk ensemble of the complex.