Sultanate Ahmadabad and its Monuments: The City of Muzaffarids (Ahmad Shahis) by Riyaz Latif and Pushkar Sohoni

Abstract

A group of monuments in Ahmadabad constructed under the patronage of the Muzaffarid (Ahmad Shahi) sultanate of Gujarat stand testimony today to the composite heritage of the city. Sultanate Ahmadabad and its Monuments serves as a succinct guide to these representative monuments constructed under a sovereignty that endured for almost two centuries until its annexation into the Mughal Empire under Akbar in 1573. The Ahmad Shahi sultanate architecture merits attention on the grounds of its distinctive constructional as well as ornamental features. The innovative syncretic richness of these structures needs to be considered in light of the historical, cultural, and political exigencies of the Gujarat sultanate that bear upon the formation of this unique regional idiom within the continuum of Indo Islamic architecture. With a concise Introduction to historical, cultural, and architectural currents, this book lays out helpful itineraries for visiting these refined specimens of sultanate architecture in Ahmadabad. Primarily envisioned as a guide for studious visitors, this book should be of interest also to academics and historians of Indo-Islamic architecture. Richly illustrated, it brings to light an architectural corpus which deserves a central space as well as a composite scholarly assessment within the discourse surrounding the cultural expressions of Islamic architecture in the Indian subcontinent.