Agra's Indo-Islamic architecture has a blend of Indian, Persian and Islamic styles. Comment.

Indian, Persian, and Islamic strands

• Indian masons brought trabeate halls, carved brackets, chhatris, and red sandstone from the Fatehpur Sikri–Agra belt.
• Persian taste brought the chaharbagh, iwans, and inlay habits that Mughal courts had already used in Central Asian and Timurid design.
• Islamic forms are the dome, the pointed arch, the minaret, and the tomb as a garden of paradise.

Buildings that show the blend

• Agra Fort under Akbar is mainly red sandstone with Indian halls; Shah Jahan later inserted white marble palaces, so one fort holds both phases.
• The Taj Mahal uses a Persian charbagh and an Islamic mausoleum, but its pietra dura, lotus finial, and craftsmen are Indian.
• Itimad-ud-Daulah’s tomb, built for Mirza Ghiyas Beg, is an early Agra use of white marble and marble inlay, often called a step toward the Taj.

Comment

• The blend is not three styles pasted side by side; it is one court workshop using Indian labour on Persian-Islamic programmes.
• Later visitors see Indo-Islamic form because sandstone, marble, garden, and dome sit in the same precinct.