Eight Lectures on India

by Halford John Mackinder

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Horse Fair, Delhi.| |25.
Dariba Street, Delhi.| Finally, we have two scenes of native life at Delhi. The first is a horse fair outside the Kashmir Gate, and the second a street view.

Let us travel to Agra, which stands on the right bank of the Jumna, about a hundred miles southeast of Delhi. The Jumna flows from north to south until beside Agra Fort, and then turns sharply eastward. About a mile and a half further on, on the same right bank, now the south side of the river, there stands the Taj Mahal, the most celebrated of all Muhammadan tombs. The building of Agra Fort was commenced by the Emperor Akbar in the middle of the 16th century, and was completed by Shah Jahan, the father of Aurangzeb, in the 17th century. It was this Shah Jahan who built the Palace within the Fort and also the Taj.

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The Pearl Mosque, Agra Fort.| The Fort and the buildings which it contains rise by the side of the river and dominate the plain beyond it. Here within the Fort we have a view of the marble interior of the Moti Masjid, or Pearl Mosque, built by Shah Jahan in the middle of the 17th century. The floor is divided by inlaid lines of black and yellow marble into some six hundred separate divisions, called Masalas, used by the Musulmans for prayer. In the centre is a large marble tank. The effect produced on entering this mosque is profound. Outside, the city may be quivering in a haze of heat, but here the cool and soft light, and an entire absence of any discordant features in the architecture, combine to give a sense of rest and peace. Many Europeans have remarked that this mosque is a rendering in stone of the text “My house shall be called the house of prayer.”

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Jehangir’s Throne, Agra Fort.| |28.
The Jessamine Tower, Agra Fort.| |29.
The Seat of the Jester, Agra Fort.| Let us go out on to the open space by the wall, and look over the moat which divides the main buildings of the Fort from the outer rampart by the river. Across the water the Taj Mahal can just be seen beyond the bend of the river. In front of us is Jehangir’s throne, set up in the time of Akbar. It consists of a single great slab of black marble. Close by, is the Jessamine Tower. Here we have another view in which we see the Throne from the back and a corner of the Jessamine Tower. Notice the lower slab opposite, which is called the Seat of the Jester. The effect of its presence is by contrast to enhance the beauty of Jehangir’s Throne itself. Between the wall in the foreground and the outer ramparts by the river there is a drop of some sixty feet, and in this ditch fights between lions and elephants used to be held in the days of the Mogul Emperors.

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Jama Masjid, Agra.| Just outside the Fort, facing the west or Delhi Gate, is the Jama Masjid, of which we have here a view. We see the courtyard and one of the entries. The peculiarity of this mosque lies in the structure of the three great domes. They are without necks. We can just see the tops of two of them. They are built of red sandstone, and the encircling bands are of white marble.

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Taj Mahal, Agra.| |32.
The Taj Gardens.| |33.
The Same, by moonlight.| We will now visit the Taj Mahal. It was built, chiefly of marble inlaid with precious stones, by Shah Jahan as a tomb for his queen. Here we have a view of the Taj taken from without the entrance gateway. Then we pass through the gateway and enter the Taj Gardens. The watercourse in the centre is of marble, and along each side is a row of cypresses. The original cypresses had grown to such a height that the view of the Taj was becoming obstructed. They were therefore removed, and those which we see in the picture were planted by Lord Curzon, when he was Viceroy. The Taj is perhaps most beautiful in the light of the setting sun, or by moonlight. We have here a photograph made from a painting of the Taj by moonlight.

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The Bazaar, Agra.| |35.
Agra College.| |36.
Agra Jail—Wool spinning.| |37.
Agra Jail—Carpet making.| We will drive back through the native city. This is a typical scene in the Bazaar. Notice the Kotwal, or Chief of the Police, in the centre of the crowd. He is an Afghan, standing well over six feet in height and finely proportioned. On the awning over one of the shops an advertisement obtrudes, showing that even the native quarters of the cities of India are being permeated with European methods. Here is Agra College, endowed about a century ago by the then Maharaja of Gwalior. There are about a thousand students. Close by is the Jail. In this picture we see some of the prisoners spinning wool, and in the next they are making carpets.

The next series of pictures relates to the great Muhammadan anniversary of the Moharam, and in order to understand them it is necessary to say a few words regarding the history of Islam and the contending sects which have emerged from that history. Muhammad died in the year 632. He left no son; but one of his daughters, Fatima, was married to a cousin whose name was Ali. Abu Bakr, who had been a great friend and supporter of Muhammad, was elected Caliph or Vice-Regent of the Prophet. Abu Bakr died in 634, and was succeeded by Omar, who conquered Persia and Syria. To him Jerusalem capitulated. Omar was murdered in the same year, and was succeeded by Osman, who was killed in 656. Then Ali, the cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, was elected to the Caliphate. Ali was murdered in 661, and Hasan, his son, was elected Caliph in his place, but was induced to resign in favour of a Caliph of another family. Husain, the second son of Ali, never acknowledged the title of the Caliph who had superseded his brother Hasan, and when the Musulmans of Mesopotamia invited him to overthrow the usurping Caliph he felt it his duty to respond to their appeal. Accompanied by his family and a few retainers he left for Mesopotamia. On the way, at a place called Karbala, on the west bank of the Euphrates, they were overtaken by the Caliph’s army, and after a heroic struggle lasting several days were all slaughtered, save the women and a sickly child called Ali, who died soon afterwards. Thus ended the Republic of Islam. Up to this time the office of Caliph had been elective and the government essentially democratic. The seat of government was now moved from Medina to Damascus.

In the middle of the eighth century of the Christian era a great revolution took place in Western Asia. The revolt was headed by a descendant of Abbas, an uncle of the Prophet, and the outcome of it was that the Abbassides, or members of the family of Abbas, established themselves as Caliphs, and ruled at Bagdad from the year 756 to the year 1258. When Bagdad was destroyed by the Mongols a member of the Abbassides family escaped to Cairo, where he was recognised as Caliph by the Sultan of Egypt. The eighth Caliph in succession from this man renounced the Caliphate in favour of Sultan Salim, the great Ottoman conqueror, and it is on this renunciation that the title of the Sultan of Turkey to the spiritual headship of Islam is based.

It will be seen from this short statement of the history that a great change took place in Islam when Husain, the descendant of the Caliph Ali and of Fatima, the Prophet’s daughter, was slain at Karbala, on the Euphrates. From that tragedy dates the chief division of Islam. The Shiah sect traces its foundation to the Caliph Ali and the immediate descendants of the Prophet, who are regarded as the rightful exponents of his teaching. Some twenty millions of the Indian Musulmans are Shiahs, and Shiahism is also the State religion of Persia. There are a large number of Shiahs also in other parts of the Muhammadan world, but nowhere, except in Persia, a majority. The Shiahs are advocates of Apostolic descent and lineal succession to the Caliphate.