Qutub Minar Express Entry Tour with Hotel Pick Up & Drop Off in Delhi

One monument, properly explained

Qutub Minar is usually twenty minutes on a city tour. It deserves two hours, because the complex around the tower is where Islamic architecture in India actually begins — and because the most interesting object in it is not the minaret.

The tower

Begun in 1193 by Qutb-ud-din Aibak, the first sultan of Delhi, and finished by his successors: 73 metres of fluted red sandstone and marble in five tapering storeys, each with a balcony, each in a slightly different style because each was built by a different ruler.

It is the tallest brick minaret in the world. The Quranic inscription bands running up it are cut deep enough to read from the ground.

The interior staircase has been closed since 1981, after a stampede. Nobody goes up.

Quwwat-ul-Islam mosque

The complex around the tower, and the part a guide earns their fee on. It was the first mosque built in Delhi, and it was assembled from the stone of twenty-seven dismantled Hindu and Jain temples — which is not hidden. You can see the original carving on the columns, with figurative faces chiselled off.

That makes it an uncomfortable and completely fascinating building: an entirely Islamic plan built out of entirely Hindu parts by craftsmen who only knew how to carve one way.

The iron pillar

Seven metres of wrought iron standing in the courtyard, made in the 4th century under the Gupta emperors. It has stood over sixteen hundred years in the open air and has barely rusted, because of a phosphorus-rich film that formed on its surface. Metallurgists still publish papers on it.

Alai Darwaza and the Alai Minar

The 1311 gateway with its horseshoe arches, and the stump of a second tower Alauddin Khalji started and meant to build twice as tall. He died; it stands at 25 metres.

Four options

Guide only; guide with the entry ticket; car, driver and guide; or all of it.

Practical

Around two and a half hours. Entry is ₹600 for foreign nationals.