Theatres of power and piety

Among the most active architectural patrons in the late eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Muslim world were the rulers and elites of Awadh, a fertile and prosperous region in North India. ¹ With a thriving agricultural economy, Awadh was an important, semi-independent province in the Mughal (Indo-Timurid) empire, which was increasingly challenged by forces both internal and external. While navigating the ambitions of the Rohillas, Sikhs, Mahrattas and late Mughal court factions, Awadh elites were both contenders and allies with the British, whose grasp over South Asia’s economies and political regimes was tightening. Comprised mainly of Twelver Shiite Muslims and select Hindus, Awadh elites not only began to appropriate Anglo-European languages of power but continued to employ South Asian forms, particularly those synthesized by the once dominant Mughal dynasty. Monumental architecture, through its patronage, production and use, served as an important medium in which courtly society defined itself and enacted its diverse rituals of power.