As Aligarh Muslim University marks the birth month of its founder, one aspect of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan’s life remains severely underappreciated – his passion for architecture and his pioneering work in architectural history.

How did a jurist in service of the East India Company, coming from a lineage of Mughal courtiers, come to write the first modern architectural history of India? And what is significant in the way that he did it?

Syed’s book Asar-us-Sanadid (Remnants of Heroes), published 1847, is a rigorous survey of the historical buildings of Delhi. It was produced as a lithograph and contains 130 illustrations made by artists Faiz Ali Khan and Mirza Shahrukh Beg. It has a preface by the Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib. Imam Bakhsh Sahbai, a professor of Persian at Delhi College, also contr

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