Talk:Ustad Ahmad Lahori

Untitled

Why his name was Lahauri if he was from Afghanistan? LifeH2O (talk) 13:02, 25 December 2013 (UTC)

what about ustad isa effendi? many accounts give him as being the architect...? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.178.100.88 (talk) 09:21, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

See Ustad Isa. --Joopercoopers (talk) 02:50, 3 June 2008 (UTC)

History

Who made taj mahal 2409:4064:E83:2B5A:0:0:B80B:B01 (talk) 14:33, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

USTAD AHMAD

Ustad Ahmad was killed by Shah Jahan because he did not want lsa to build another building like Taj Mahal. It is belived that ther is a hole in the roof of Taj Mahal that lsa can only fix. 103.149.159.128 (talk) 07:07, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Remove Ustad

remove Ustad from the title anc change it to Ahmad Lahori as per WP:HONORIFIC and WP:COMMONNAME as Ustad is a prefix and most of the Academic Sources cited mention him as that — Preceding unsigned comment added by SKAG123 (talk • contribs) 21:21, 24 March 2023 (UTC)

Myths about ustad ahmad lahori's role as the chief architect of shahjahan

i will be going through the claims line-by-line and refuting them -

C stands for Claims and A stands for answers

"C1. the chief Mughal architect and engineer during the reign of emperor Shah Jahan

A1: to refute this claim of him being an "chief Mughal architect" i quote directly from Ebba Koch, the best living scholar on those matters on the nature of architects of that era : (The Complete Taj Mahal and the Riverfront Gardens of Agra p. 89.)

"The identity of the architect or architects of the Taj Mahal is not definitely known, because, as we have seen, the histories of Shah Jahan's reign emphasize the emperor's personal involvement. In the Islamic world a building was in the first instance associated with its patron.

Of all Mughal emperors, Shah Jahan showed the greatest interest in building, and he had himself represented as his own architect." + see A3 on who is attributed as the chief Mughal architect of that era

C2. the attached potrait of Ahmad Lahori A2:

it cannot be his potrait, but it is the potrait of some random man, as (again i quote the same part as above from Koch) : "Unlike his painters, who were allowed to sign their works and to include their self-portraits. Shah Jahan's architects are only mentioned at random, and not a single portrait of a Mughal architect is known.

C3..He was responsible for the construction of several Mughal monuments, including the Taj Mahal in Agra and the Red fort in Delhi, He designed the Jama Mosque in Delhi as well.

A3. again i refer to the above Koch the academic on the nature of that work from that time, "The supervisors (sarkar) of Shah Jahan's building projects are named more often, but the exact nature of their role in the process is not defined and remains to be established."

and who were those prominent named men? koch in the book "mughal architecture" on page 96 talks about them. while doing it she establishes first of all that Shahjahan himself above all is attributed as the Chief architect,

"While the credit for these buildings, even for their overall concept, had to go to Shah Jahan as the supreme architect, his historians mention several of the men responsible for the actual realization. An outstanding figure in Shah Jahan’s early reign was Mir ʿAbd al-Karim, who had already literally made himself a name as Jahangir’s leading architect. The most famous of the constructions he supervised — together with the noble Makramat Khan — was the Taj Mahal. Makramat Khan was later — when governor of Delhi — also employed as the final chief overseer of the construction of the Red Fort of Shahjahanabad, the emperor’s palace-fortress in his new capital at Delhi."

none of the above were Ahmad Lahori, Ahmad Lahori is later mentioned, but not as the chief architect of shahjahan or "greatest" as claimed in the previous wiki, but the only solid record him him is along with Ustad-Hamid laying down the foundations of the palace-fortress of Shahjanabad.

now onto the Jama Masjid claim, Lahori died in 1649, a year before the foundations of mosque were laid. he horrible claim came from a 2015 book called the BLACK TAJ MAHAL: The Emperor's Missing Tomb by I.N Khan which was in turn quoting another source that explicitly made it apparent it was conjecture on the author's part with no evidence whatsoever - "Although there is no documentary evidence, it is possible that before his death" see the "no documentary evidence part" on the book - Taj Mahal : the illumined tomb : an anthology of seventeenth-century Mughal and European documentary sources - page. xlv.

C4." Considered the greatest of the Mughal architects"

A4. the claim comes from the attached source "Curl, James Stevens; Wilson, Susan (2015). The Oxford Dictionary of Architecture " which is a dictionary with many thousands of brief terms, one of its entry of a few lines is about Ahmad Lahori who they make it clear "If these attributions are correct, he was one of the greatest C17 architects" they make it explicit on the "If" conjecture and by referring to scholarly work on that topic (refer above answers) its extremely unlikely and uncorroborated beyond the foundation work noted above, making that claim on the wiki a bad manipulation of their words from that book.

So as seen above, ahmad lahori is nowhere near what big claims about him make him out to be, so where do these mythological claims pop up from?

details of his personal life and grand attributions come from the work of his own son called "Diwan-e-Muhandis", and they dont match-up with the other mughal records and the many names attributed for their work in architecture, those uncorroborated claims of such grand nature give the claims as little and equal credibility as the claims of their contemporary Sebastian Manrique, who saw the Taj under construction in 1640-41, and declared that an Italian goldsmith named 'Geronimo Veroneo' had prepared the design.

So lets have scholarly integrity and not popularize shaky myths.

now the old version of the page was exclusively based on all these myths upon myths and used points only from the hagiography of his own son, the newer version took in account multiple stronger records via solid academic scholarship on that topic, and the hagiography's parts are still quoted while alerting the reader know their uncorroborated nature and it being from his own son.

it is our duty to have the best possible information up, so let's please respect good scholarship and we will have the better academically strong page replace it instead of having up a borderline mythological portrayal of him that ignored the many records, academic work and the nature of architectural work from that era. Goshua55 (talk) 19:52, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

• Goshua55, you need to take smaller steps. I agree with you on A4 and have edited accordingly. Drmies (talk) 21:00, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
  • thank you drmies, it would be a great help if we can fix this pseduo-history page, ive extensively used Ebba Koch's work as she's perhaps the best authority on it alive. the old version had sources with amateur's repeating myths (such as the black taj author writing up ustad's role on the jama which on cross-checking his source was a book where the authors made it explicit there was no evidence) Goshua55 (talk) 21:11, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
  • could we remove the parts from the top: "was the chief Mughal architect and engineer during the reign of emperor Shah Jahan. He was responsible for the construction of several Mughal monuments," "He designed the Jama Mosque in Delhi as well", and "Considered the greatest of the Mughal architects". And this in career: :"In 1631, Shah Jahan appointed him for the construction of Taj Mahal. The construction project employed some 20,000 artisans under the guidance of a board of architects led by Ahmad Lahori. The project took twelve years to manifest into reality. Afterwards, he was relocated to Delhi where the emperor commissioned him for the construction of the new imperial city, Shahjahanabad, in 1639." Goshua55 (talk) 21:21, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
    • and also the fake potrait attached. Goshua55 (talk) 21:22, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
      • Just to keep it clean: you're talking about Koch, Ebba (2006). The Complete Taj Mahal: And the Riverfront Gardens of Agra. Thames & Hudson. ISBN 9780500342091.. I put it in a template so it can be copied. The book is legit; a glowing review is here, Lambourn, Elizabeth (2009). "Reviewed Work(s): The Complete Taj Mahal and the Riverfront Gardens of Agra by Ebba Koch". Ars Orientalis. 36: 237–239.. I don't have access to the book, but I do have access to this, Koch, Ebba (2005). "The Taj Mahal: Architecture, Symbolism, and Urban Significance". Muqarnas. 22: 128–149.. I haven't read that yet but I will. Drmies (talk) 21:25, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
      • Goshua55, please see how I edited your post. Please stick with asterisks, don't put all those line breaks in there, and make sure to punctuate and capitalize properly. It's sometimes hard to follow. See edits to the article, based on your comments. Drmies (talk) 21:29, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
        • if you have difficulty finding that book let me know and ill share an cloud link of the scan. i am south asian myself and good scholarship is rare for us especially about topics so laden with baggage and un-checked myths like those buildings and figures used for historical revisionism. Goshua55 (talk) 21:36, 10 December 2024 (UTC)
          • Oh, I don't need the book: you have the book. But what you need to do is write your text carefully and conservatively, and (as I mentioned before) I find it very unlikely that ALL the material you ascribe to Koch is on that one single page. Drmies (talk) 22:39, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

Image

MaplesyrupSushi, Goshua55 is questioning the authenticity of the portrait, and this here is not a very impressive source, to be honest, and simply posts the picture with an unexplained and unverified caption. Drmies (talk) 21:31, 10 December 2024 (UTC)

• Drmies, The blog seems to be related to Chugtai Museum in Lahore, Pakistan, which currently hosts the painting. The attached PDF explains it. I'm not sure of the authenticity of the portrait, but the painting is termed as that of Lahori in the site. If we can get someone on the ground confirm it as the work there (maybe someone active in WikiProject Pakistan and is in Lahore), we can clear the authenticity better. — — Benison (Beni · talk) 17:06, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

  the picture picked off at the end of that blog doesnt label it as it being ahmad lahori, there are multiple potraits in it of multiple people.

  the label on the bottom left has a text in persian that says "son of Ahmad Lahori" ie. his son and not him, you can test it yourself via google translate. it also matches the tradition that koch the academic has talked of (see C2 and A2 of myth talk section) Goshua55 (talk) 19:02, 11 December 2024 (UTC)

@Benison, @Drmies, @Goshua55 - I thought it depicted Ahmad Lahori as per the museum's blog post and the PDF but if that is not the case, I have no objections to removing the painting from the article. MaplesyrupSushi (talk) 02:17, 12 December 2024 (UTC)