The Taj Mahal: A 21-Year Love Letter Built in Marble

Most famous buildings were built to project power. The Taj Mahal was built out of grief.

A promise made in loss

In 1631, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan's wife, Mumtaz Mahal, died giving birth to their 14th child. According to court chronicles, Shah Jahan was so devastated that his hair reportedly turned gray within months. He commissioned a mausoleum worthy of her memory on the banks of the Yamuna River in Agra — a building meant to be, quite literally, a monument to love.

Construction began in 1632. The main mausoleum was finished by 1648, and the surrounding complex — gardens, mosque, guest house, and the great gate — wasn't fully complete until 1653. In total, it took roughly 21 years and, by most estimates, over 20,000 workers, including masons, stonecutters, inlayers, and calligraphers brought in from across the Mughal Empire and beyond.

A team pulled from three continents

The project reads like an international guild. Ustad Ahmad Lahori is generally credited as the lead architect. The dome is attributed to an Ottoman designer, Ismail Afandi. Persian architects Ustad Isa and Isa Muhammad Effendi contributed to the design, and calligrapher Amanat Khan Shirazi carved the Quranic verses that wrap the exterior — one of the only artisans on the project allowed to sign his work.

The materials traveled just as far. The white marble came from Makrana in Rajasthan; the red sandstone from Fatehpur Sikri. Inlaid into the marble are 28 types of precious and semi-precious stones — jade, turquoise, lapis lazuli, sapphire, carnelian — sourced from as far away as Tibet, Sri Lanka, and Arabia.

What happened after

Shah Jahan didn't get to enjoy the Taj Mahal in peace for long. His son Aurangzeb deposed him in 1658 and imprisoned him in nearby Agra Fort, where — according to popular accounts — the former emperor spent his final years gazing at the Taj Mahal across the river. When he died in 1666, he was buried beside Mumtaz Mahal, the only asymmetrical element in an otherwise perfectly symmetrical design.

The building didn't always get the reverence it has today. In the 18th century, Jat rulers looted its silver doors and gold ornamentation. By the time the British took control of India, the Taj Mahal had fallen into disrepair, and it took a major restoration ordered by Lord Curzon, completed in 1908, to bring back its gardens and grounds.

Quick facts

• Commissioned: 1631, by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan
• Construction: 1632–1653 (about 21 years)
• Material: White Makrana marble with inlaid semi-precious stones
• UNESCO World Heritage Site: since 1983

The "Black Taj Mahal" myth

One persistent legend claims Shah Jahan planned a mirror-image "Black Taj Mahal" across the river as his own tomb, connected by a bridge. It's a great story, but 1990s excavations on the opposite bank found no evidence of it — just the remains of a moonlight garden designed to reflect the white marble at night, which is arguably a better ending anyway.

Visiting today

The Taj Mahal is best seen at sunrise, both for the light on the marble and for the smaller crowds. It remains one of the most-visited monuments on Earth and is widely considered one of the finest examples of Mughal architecture ever built — a building that set out to be a tomb and ended up as one of the most recognized symbols of love in the world.