“This tomb, which is an asylum of paradise, was built during the reign of Islam Shah, son of Sher Shah, may God perpetuate his kingdom and sovereignty, in the year 954 AH.”

“This tomb, which is an asylum of paradise, was built during the reign of Islam Shah, son of Sher Shah, may God perpetuate his kingdom and sovereignty, in the year 954 AH.”

- Inscription translation from Zafar Hassan

Built almost five centuries ago, the tomb enclosure was built for Isa Khan Niyazi who was a noble of influence at the court of Sher Shah Sur, and his the younger son Islam Shah.

It was largely due to Isa Khan that Islam Shah succeeded in holding the throne of Delhi against his elder brother Adil Khan.

In 1920s, there were villagers residing within the garden enclosures of Isa Khan’s Tomb and Bu Halima’s Tomb, which were brought out and relocated.

The Isa Khan’s Tomb is the culmination of two centuries of an architectural style of tomb building in the city of Delhi.

The Isa Khan’s Tomb is the culmination of two centuries of an architectural style of tomb building in the city of Delhi.

Resembling more closely to the early 15th - century tomb of Mubarak Shah Sayyid but significantly more ornamental with the use of dressed sandstone for the façade of the mosque, elaborate finials, large scale use of ceramic tiles on the façade of the tomb, mosque and on the canopies and the highly ornamental plasterwork.

Conservation works focussed on restoring the ornamentation where evidence of original details is known.

Conservation works focussed on restoring the ornamentation where evidence of original details is known.

The discovery that the outer garden was originally 4’ below the levels of the garden that surrounds the tomb required 125,000 cubic feet of earth to be manually removed to restore historic levels.

This revealed several hundred terracotta objects, in addition to architectural elements, as well as the arcade of the enclosure wall, which is now once again visible as intended.

In order to ensure no damage to underlying archaeology occurs this work was carried out manually.

The ornamental ceiling of the dome required extensive careful restoration and with the final application of lime punning as well as cleaning of stone surfaces with water and soft brushes the quality of the interior space has improved dramatically.

The finial was unearthed during the garden excavation.

After removing the added layers, the original glazed tile work of the finial have been restored using matching glazed turquoise blue tiles prepared on site.

Fragments of the finial, visible in archival photographs were discovered during the earth removal and used to carve out new elements carefully matching the original.

Fixing this 3000 kilo finial was a major challenge for the master craftsmen.

Ornate medallions of incised plasterwork and ceramic tile inlays decorate the spandrels of all arches.

This significant structure stands out due to the liberal use of ornamentation such as plaster work, glazed tiles, marble finials and stone lattice screens.

Stunning incised plaster work is visible on the ceiling and its arches.