The Qutb Minar rises 73 meters and dominates the area in which it sits. Remarkably ornate and constructed or redesigned by three patrons, the Minar has five storeys, each of which has it’s own balcony. Along the Minar are wide swaths of carved inscriptions. Next to the Qutb Minar stands the remains of what was India’s first mosque. Built atop a Hindu temple, an inscription reads that it was built with the materials from 27 demolished ‘idolatrous temples.’ The capital program inside the mosque provides striking proof of the pillaging. Over the following two hundred plus years, others built more and added to the complex.
Interestingly, in the courtyard stands an iron pillar so pure that scientists have yet to explain how it was made with the technology of the time. The pillar has an inscription commemorating the Gupta kind Chandragupta II and was made some time in the fifth century AD. The pillar was brought to this location from somewhere else.
