Background
Humayun, son of Babur, lost his kingdom to Sher Shah Sur in 1540 and spent fifteen years in exile, much of it at the Safavid court of Persia. He recovered Delhi in 1555 and died the following January after falling down the stairs of his library in the Purana Qila. He was buried first in the fort, and his remains were moved to the tomb when it was ready.
Building
The tomb stands near the shrine of the Chishti Sufi Nizamuddin Auliya, a site that already drew royal burials. Most accounts credit its building to Bega Begum, also called Haji Begum, Humayun's senior widow, who is said to have stayed near it after her pilgrimage to Mecca; others give the young Akbar the main role. Work is usually dated from about 1565 and complete by around 1572. The architect named in the sources is Mirak Mirza Ghiyas, a Persian from Herat who had worked in Bukhara, and the building was finished after his death by his son.
Design
The tomb sits on a broad arcaded platform, inside which are the cells that hold many later burials. Above rises an octagonal plan within a square, with a high central chamber and four corner rooms, each face opened by a great arched recess. The central dome is a true double dome: an inner shell sized to the room and an outer shell raised high on a drum so that it can be seen from a distance. This was not new in the Islamic world, but it was the first use on this scale in India. Red sandstone is outlined with white marble, a combination that was to define Mughal building for the next half century.
The building stands at the centre of a charbagh, a garden divided into four by raised walkways and water channels, each quarter divided again. The garden expresses the paradise imagery common to Persian and Central Asian tombs. The plan, the double dome and the garden setting all lead directly to the Taj Mahal, built by Humayun's great-grandson some sixty years later.
The dormitory of the Mughals
The tomb became a family burial place. Its chambers hold more than a hundred graves, mostly unmarked. Among those believed buried here are Bega Begum herself, Dara Shikoh, executed on Aurangzeb's orders in 1659, and several later emperors of the eighteenth century, including Jahandar Shah, Farrukhsiyar and Alamgir II. Writers have called it the dormitory of the Mughals.
In September 1857, after the British retook Delhi, the last emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, took refuge here with members of his family. He surrendered to William Hodson, who the next day shot three of the princes near the city.
Neighbours and restoration
The complex includes earlier and later buildings: the octagonal tomb of Isa Khan Niyazi, a noble of the Sur court, built in the 1540s; the Afsarwala tomb and mosque; and the Nila Gumbad, with its blue glazed dome. Under British rule the gardens were replanted in an English manner. From the late 1990s the Archaeological Survey of India and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture restored the water channels and the garden, and later the building itself, using lime mortar and traditional craftsmen.
Further reading
- Asher, Catherine B. India Before Europe. Cambridge University Press, 2006
- Richards, John F. The Mughal Empire. Cambridge University Press, 1993
- Dehejia, Vidya. Indian Art. Phaidon, 1997
See also
- Mughal Empire — The Mughal Empire was a Persianate Muslim dynasty of Timurid and Chagatai descent that ruled most of the Indian subcontinent from Babur's victory at the First Battle of Panipat in 1526 until the deposition of Bahadur Shah II following the 1857 rebellion, reaching its territorial and cultural peak under Akbar, Shah Jahan, and Aurangzeb.
- Akbar — Akbar, born Jalal-ud-din Muhammad, was the third Mughal emperor, who ruled from 1556 to 1605, expanded the empire across most of the Indian subcontinent, and restructured its administration and religious policy.
- Taj Mahal — The Taj Mahal is a white marble mausoleum complex on the Yamuna river at Agra, built between 1632 and 1653 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, and one of the most recognized buildings in the world.
- Dara Shikoh — Dara Shikoh (1615–1659) was the eldest son of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan and heir apparent to the Mughal throne until his defeat and execution by his younger brother Aurangzeb in the war of succession.
- Revolt of 1857 — A large-scale uprising against East India Company rule that began among sepoys of the Bengal Army in May 1857 and spread across much of north and central India before being suppressed in 1858.
- Delhi — Delhi is the capital of India and one of the longest continuously inhabited urban regions in the subcontinent, having served as the seat of power for successive dynasties across more than a millennium.
This entry was last revised on 12 November 2026.