Qutab Minar from multiple angles, in Delhi

From the archive record

Qutub Minar is a UNESCO world heritage site in the Mehrauli area of New Delhi. There are many historical monuments surround it and the whole area forms part of the Qutb complex. Qutbu'd-Din Aibak laid the foundation of Minar in AD 1199 for the use of the mu'azzin (crier) to give calls for prayer and raised the first storey, to which were added three more storeys by his successor and son-in-law, Shamsu'd-Din Iltutmish (AD 1211-36). All the storeys are surrounded by a projected balcony encircling the minar and supported by stone brackets, which are decorated with honeycomb design, more conspicuously in the first storey. Numerous inscriptions in Arabic and Nagari characters in different places of the minar reveal the history of Qutb. According to the inscriptions on its surface, it was repair