Abstract
The following paper discusses how the experience and perception of contingency and strategies to cope with it are evident in the architecture of the Muslim ruling class during the early Delhi Sultanate (1190–1320). The discussed building is the most important Friday Mosque in this context, a quasi-visualized symbol of the thematic concept of rulership for the new Muslim political elite. This ruling class established itself in Northern India in the late 12th century within a multi-ethnic, multi-religious and socially heterogeneous society, in which extremely different forms of communication, social hierarchies, worldviews, religious concepts, social norms and perceptions of historical images and experiences met. From the 13th century onwards, the countless immigrants and refugees from Persian-speaking areas had a remarkable influence on the local culture which was already multifaceted due to the various indigenous Northern Indian conceptions of life, faith and perception. Examining the architecture of the mosque as well as its decoration and systems of inscriptions, it will be shown how these almost text-like visual systems where adapted and used by different rulers as part of their diverging strategies of legitimization of their rule and how they created visualized reference systems to promote a coherent, specific historical narrative and a visual experience and language of a meaningful collective past to which all social and religious groups in Northern India could relate.