Nizam Shahi kings had left behind a number of beautiful and imposing monuments which bear eloquent testimony to their patronage to architecture. Most of these buildings, however, lack ornamentation.
They were more interested in laying out beautiful gardens around the buildings. However, the style of Nizam Shahi architecture has certain distinctive features, “slim towers, semi-circular domes, low arches and abundant use of small stones.”
Ahmad Nizam Shah built a massive fort at Ahmadnagar which was 180 miles in circumference. Inside the fort were built a number of palaces “with arches and domed roofs with coloured and latticed walls like the mirror of the satin sky, red and yellow with floors paved with turquoise lapis lazuli, thecourts were like the gardens and their fountains like the spring of Paradise.”
A very attractive feature of the palace is the public audience room-90 feet long, 22 feet broad and 18 feet high. The room is adorned by a number of domes. Chand Bibi’s palace inside is almost in ruins.
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But it seemed to have been a magnificent building. John B. Seely rightly observes about these buildings in his “Wonders of Ellora”: “The gothic arches and ceilings are very highly finished, the quartering of the ceilings into a variety of angles and curves has a very pretty effect and some paintings in a minaret adjoining the palace are very well executed.
Suites of rooms may be traced, running parallel from the minaret. In front are some fountains which still throw up water conveyed by aqueducts from a distance of two miles or more.
The bathing place for the women of the harem is easily known by its having only sky light on the top in the middle of the roof to admit light and leaden pipes rim in different directions through the wall of the room.” Seely was attracted by some other buildings such as giladar’s house and gardens which surrounded them.
Radhey Shyam in his “The Kingdom of Ahmadnagar” enumerates many buildings which were constructed during this period. Bagh-i-Rauza which contains the remains of Ahmad Nizam Shah is undoubtedly the most beautiful building in Ahmadnagar. It is built of black stone with a dome as a roof.
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The inside walls are inscribed with texts from the Quran in golden letters. Bagh-Hasht-Bahisht or the Eighth Paradise is a beautiful garden which contains a pond and a two-storeyed palace with eight gates representing the eight gates of heaven. Special arrangements were made to bring water for the pond from the village of Vadgaon and Shendi.
Mecca Mosque which was constructed by Rumi Khan who had designed the famous cannon malik-i-maidan. The flat roof of the mosque stands upon black marble pillars which were brought from Mecca from which it derives its name. The mosque built of trap and lime, has two floors. The ground floor was used for rest while the upper floor was meant for worship.
The other noteworthy buildings are Kali Mosque, Shah Tahir’s Palace, Chobin Mosque Kotla Mosque and Rumi Khan’s tomb. Farah Bagh to which a reference has already been made was rebuilt by Salabat Khan after demolishing its original building which was disliked by Burhan Nizam Shah.
There was a lake in the middle of the palace which was a two-storeyed structure. To Salabat Khan goes the credit of founding the city of Sholapur, where he built a mosque. Miran Husain II was also the founder of the town of Tisagaon which was called Husainabad. He constructed a number of buildings in this town.
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Painting
The Nizam Shahi School of painting took shape only after the fall of the Vijayanagar Empire when a number of artists flocked to Ahmadnagar. There was a fusion of the Islamic art of Persia and the indigenous art of Vijayanagar. Some of the important artists of the period were Nur Muhammad (A.D. 1590), and Mir Hashim. The latter painted the portraits of Malik Ambar and Abhang Khan which show his mastery of the qalam. There is also extant an illuminated manuscript ‘Tarif-i-Husain Shahi’ belonging to this period (A.D. 1565-1568) which throws light on the development of this art at the Nizam Shahi court.
The paintings in this manuscript have a close resemblance to those in the Rangmala series. The “women are stately and tall” and the colour used is a mixture of blue, orange and yellow with pink. We may, therefore, conclude that this art, too, was not completely neglected at the Nizam Shahi Court.