Asaf Khan, the father of Mumtaz Mahal, was appointed
to succeed him.

Itmad-ad-daulah and his wife are buried in the central chamber;
his brother and sister and other members of his family occupy
the four corners. The pavilion on the roof, enclosed by beautiful
marble tracery (Plate IX.), contains only replicas of the real tombs
beneath. The mausoleum was commenced in 1622 and completed in 1628. As
a composition it may lack inspiration, but it is exceedingly elegant,
and scholarly like the Lord High Treasurer himself. In construction it
marks the transition from the style of Akbar to that of Shah Jahan;
from the Jahangiri Mahal to the Diwan-i-khas, the Muti Masjid, and
the Taj. The towers at the four corners might be the first suggestion
of the detached minarets of the Taj. The Hindu feeling which is so
characteristic of most of Akbar's buildings is here only shown in
the roof of the central chamber over the tomb; in pure Saracenic
architecture a tomb is always covered by a dome.

This change in style greatly influenced the architecture of the
whole of the north of India, Hindu and Jain as well as Muhammadan. It
must be remembered that comparatively few of the master-builders who
actually constructed the most famous examples of Mogul architecture
were Muhammadans. The remarkable decline of the Mogul style which
set in under Aurangzib was largely due to his bigotry in refusing to
employ any but true believers.

The family ties of Itmad-ud-daulah and his daughter, the Empress,
were closely connected with Persia and Central Asia; and no doubt
the fashion set by Jahangir's court led to the Saracenic element
becoming predominant in the Mogul style, both in construction and in
decoration. Many authorities have connected the marked difference
between Itmad-ud-daulah's tomb and Akbar's buildings to Italian
influence, only on the ground that Jahangir is known to have been
partial to Europeans, and allowed them free access to his palace. There
is not, however, a trace of Italian art in any detail of the building;
there is not a form or decorative idea which had not been used in
India or in Central Asia for centuries. The use of marble inlaid work
on so extensive a scale was a novelty, but it was only an imitation,
or adaptation, of the splendid tile-mosaic and painted tile-work
which were the commonest kinds of decoration employed in Persia:
Wazir Khan's mosque at Lahore, built in Jahangir's time, is a fine
Indian example of