Indian Islamic inscriptions date from the last decade of the 12th century AD

when Muhammad Ghori conquered Delhi and established his kingdom there.

Certain movable objects like arms, seals, signets, vases, utensils and tombs

account for majority of inscriptions, next followed by forts.

The language of the records of the early period of the Delhi Sultanate is Arabic.

Majority of epigraphical records is in Persian in view of the fact that Persian

had been the state or official language right from the beginning of the Muslim

rule. Persian played an important role in the educational and cultural life of the

various regions of the sub-continent in varying degrees depending upon local

factors.

Apart from Arabic, Persian and Urdu inscriptions, there are bilingual.

inscriptions, i.e. Arabic with regional languages like Gujarati, Marathi, Bengali,

Tamil and Malayalam and Persian with the provincial languages like Kannada,

Telugu, Oriya, Tamil, Gujarati and Marathi.

Coin issued by - Iltutmish

Weight: 3.39 gm., Diameter: 15-16 mmHorseman left, holding lance / Four line Arabic legend: al-sultan al-a'zam iltutmish al-sultan

Coin issued by – Ghiyas ud-din Balban

Weight: 10.96 gm., Diameter: 27 mm

Legend with the name of the sultan and his titles /

Legend with the name of Caliph al-Must'asim

in the margin

STYLE OF ART AND ARCHITECTUREThe Sultanate introduced two new architectural ideas, the dome and the pointed arch. The dome was an important decorative structure in Islamic buildings, and soon was implemented in other structures as well. The pointed or true arch that was introduced during this period, was completely different from the type of arches that were being constructed within the country earlier. The earlier Indian style of creating arches was to first put up two pillars. The pillars would then be cut at intervals accommodate 'plug in' projections. There would be a sequence of squares that would gradually decrease in size creating an arch. The new artisans introduced the true arch. This was achieved by making the middle stone a key stone and to have the other stones distribute the load of on the two pillars.

Qutab Minar, is the tallest minar in India, originally

an ancient Islamic Monument, inscribed with

Arabic inscriptions, though the iron pillar has

some Brahmi inscriptions, and is a UNESCO World

Heritage Site Located in Delhi, the Qutub Minar is

made of red sandstone and marble. The stairs of the

tower has 379 steps, is 72.5 metres (237.8 ft) high,

and has a base diameter of 14.3 metres, which

narrows to 2.7 metres at the top storey. Construction

was started in 1192 by Qutub-ud-in-Aibak and was

completed by Iltutmish.