Hi guys today I wanted to share my traveling story to Qutub Minar. An historical Place in my Country's Capital.It is Located in New Delhi. I took the opportunity of my Free day to visit this marvelous structure.In this post I will be sharing about the history and few pictures of the Qutub Minar and Myself. Below is the picture of me getting in the car to the destination. I had to wake up really early in the morning to beat the traffic of New Delhi and Also the crowd ( tourists)
Few Facts about Qutub Minar -
- Qutb Minar means pole or axis in Arabic.
- The Qutb Minar is surrounded by several great historical monuments and all of them together are referred to as “Qutb Complex”. The complex therefore includes: Iron Pillar of Delhi, Quwwat-ul-Islam Mosque, Alai Darwaza, the Tomb of Iltutmish, Alai Minar, Ala-ud-din’s Madrasa and Tomb, the Tomb of Imam Zamin, Major Smith’s Cupola and Sanderson’s Sundial.
- The top floor of the minar was destructed by the lightning and rebuilt by Firoz Shah Tughlaq. These floors are quite distinguishable from the rest of the minar as they are made up of white marble.
- Before 1974, the general public was allowed to access the top of the minar accessed. On December 4 1981, 45 people were killed in a stampede that followed an electricity failure that plunged the tower’s staircase into darkness. Consequently, public access to the inside of the tower has been banned.
- Qutb Minar has a Decorative Light Show every evening. The Qutb Minar Festival in October/November shows the cultural art forms of the country with a back drop of this exquisite minaret.
- The Iron Pillar in the Qutb Minar Complex has been standing tall without rusting for over 2000 years! That’s wondrous.
- There are 379 stairs inside the tower which lead to the marble top of the minaret.
History Of Qutub Minar-
Qutb ud-Din Aibak, the founder of the Turkish rule in north-western India and also of the Mamluk Dynasty in Delhi commissioned the construction of this monument in 1192 AD. Aibak dedicated the minaret to the Muslim Sufi mystic, saint and scholar of the Chishti Order, Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki. Different beliefs surround the origin of the minaret. While some sources believe it was constructed as a tower of victory marking the beginning of Muslim dominion in India, some others say it served the muezzins who called the faithful to prayer from the minaret. Uncertainty hovers around naming of the tower with some suggesting it was named after the Sufi saint, Qutbuddin Bakhtiar Kaki while others believe it was named after Aibak himself.
The tower was completed by Aibak's son-in-law and successor Shams-ud-din Iltutmish, regarded as the founder of the Delhi Sultanate, in 1220. Iltutmish added three more storeys to the monument. This historical monument faced a few natural disasters. A lightning hit the top storey of the minaret in 1369 AD, knocking it off entirely. The then ruler of the Sultanate of Delhi, Sultan Firuz Shah Tughlaq took charge of its restoration and constructed two more storeys to the minaret made of marble and red sandstone. Again when an earthquake damaged it in 1505, the then Sultan of Delhi, Sikandar Lodi, reconstructed the top two storeys of the minaret with marbles. Parso-Arabic and Nagari characters engraved in various sections of the minaret speak about the history of its construction. The minaret faced the wrath of nature yet again when a major earthquake on September 1, 1803 damaged it severely. In 1828, it was renovated by Major Robert Smith of the British Indian Army, who installed a cupola atop the tower. However in 1848, as instructed by the then Governor General of India, Henry Hardinge, 1st Viscount Hardinge, the cupola was uninstalled from the tower and placed in the east of it where the cupola remains situated.
After My visit to Qutub Minar I went on a little street shopping. The street market included handmande toys jewellery, home decors. I bought some Bangles for myself.It is always a busy street no matter what time of the day you visit.
