“A collection of merits…”:1 Architectural influnces in the Friday Mosque and Kazaruni Tomb Complex at Cambay, Gujarat

Abstract

The article contributes to the expanding documentation, and development of agendas, in the discussion of medieval Islamic architecture in South Asia. These agendas are concerned with the identification of different types of Muslim settlement and culture, and developing frameworks for analysis and periodization. The present buildings were effectively unpublished prior to this article. The article reads the two structures as expressions of the hybridity of architecture in 14th century western India mixing indigenous influences, the already hybrid architecture of the area’s early Muslim mercantile diasporas, contemporary Iranian forms, and centralising influences from the Tughluq Empire. The article argues that the two structures form one of the core models for the development of Gujarat’s Islamic architecture, one of the most influential South Asian regional traditions of Islamic architecture. This article is important for furthering our understanding of the relationship of centre to periphery in the Tughluq empire, and knowledge of regional identities in relation to pre-modern empires. It also contributes to developing the research field by challenging subject boundaries, as well as temporal and geographic boundaries, and also questioning accepted definitions and categories. The extensive fieldwork involved was funded by grants from the University of London Central Research Fund and the Nehru Trust at the Victoria and Albert Museum.