Review: Delhi's Qutb Complex: The Minar, Mosque and Mehrauli, by Catherine B. Asher

In Delhi's Qutb Complex: The Minar, Mosque and Mehrauli, Catherine B. Asher presents a longue durée history of one of Delhi's most iconic monuments: the Qutb Minar and its adjoining mosque. This beautifully produced and amply illustrated book also devotes much-needed attention to the many smaller structures that surround the UNESCO-protected site of the Qutb complex in the rapidly developing neighborhood of Mehrauli in South Delhi. Writing for a broad audience, Asher brings together a vast amount of academic literature, covering topics from the origins of the Qutb complex in the late twelfth century to its expansion in the thirteenth century to its subsequent revitalization in the early modern and colonial periods. Mindful of the contemporary controversies surrounding the Qutb complex—particularly the view taken by Hindutva nationalists who point to Hindu elements in the mosque as proof that Islam was established in Delhi through a violent subjugation of indigenous...