India’s Qutub Minar
Delhi has lot of things to see in heritage sites which takes is back to history. Qutub Minar houses five monuments of five different periods. The Qutub Minar comprises of Qutub Minar, Alai Minar, Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque, Ali Darwaza and the Iron pillar. Of these, Qutub Minar is the most famous. The history goes back to Delhi’s first sultan Qutub-ud-din Aibak who started its construction in 1193 AD. It was finshined by Firoz Shah Tughluq in1368 AD. So the world’s tallest brick minaret took a total of 175 years to complete. Quwwat-ut-Islam, the first mosque in Delhi after Muhammed Ghori’s conquest, who also built by Aibak. The mosque is said to be built by the parts taken by the destruction of 27 Hindu and Jain temples. The Iron pillar in the courtyard bears inscriptions in Sanskrit dated 4th century AD, the pillar was set up in the memory of a mighty king called Chandra. Historians have yet not been able to establish his identity. Like historians, the pillar has also been a riddle for the metal which has faced all the weather, the iron pillar has not rusted till date. But the most surprising is mere width of the magnificent Alai Minar, a rubble structure close to Qutub Minar. The unfulfilled dream of Ala-ud-din Khilij as the victory tower, Alai Minar stands 27 meters high built of red stone and is uncompleted. Khilji wanted to build another minar twice the size of Qutub Minar. A look at the gigantic rubble structure and you know it could have been much taller than Qutub Minar if Ala-ud-din has lived to complete it. The project was abandoned after this death. The Qutub Minar was opened for the tourists and visitors come and watch the minar. Inside the minar there are steps to climb each stories ( around five of them) while climbing each of them there are windows so that you can take a watch below as you climbing higher and higher the things from the window looks like matchboxes. But due to the infamous of school tour stampede in 1980, the Minar was closed to the visitors.