Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb

At daybreak on the Narmada, a devotee swirls across the river’s surface while reading the Ramcharitmanas. In the epic poem, Tulsidas drew upon rich philosophical and spiritual knowledge from the Vedas, Upanishads and Puranas and made them accessible through the Awadhi language. The Bhakti Movement, which reached its zenith between the 15th and 17th centuries, provided individuals a spiritual path regardless of their birth and gender. During that period, poet-saints like Kabirdas, Bulhe Shah and Guru Nanak produced devotional literature that encompassed a variety of philosophical positions. Mysticism also contributed to syncretic exchange between Hinduism and Sufi Islam. Many of the works remain popular today.

Morning assembly at an 8th century temple at Naranag, Kashmir.

Also known as Shah-e-Hamdan, this carved wooden mosque in Srinagar is decorated with papier mache and sits adjacent to a Kali temple along the Jhelum river. It is named after Mir Sayyid Ali Hamdani, a Persian sufi saint credited with preaching Islam in Kashmir.

Siddi Sayed ni Jali in Ahmedabad illustrates the delicate balance between competing narratives about space and conquest. Built in 1573, the last year of the Gujarat Sultanate, the legend is that the Hindu artisans who carved the stone latticework chose to show the palm tree, a symbol of Islam, being entwined with the Banyan tree, representing Hinduism. The combination of Muslim architects and Hindu stonemasons who built many of the monuments from the Sultanate and Mughal eras led to wonderfully varied symbols.

Built in 1424 during the reign of the founder of Ahmedabad, Ahmed Shah I, the architectural elements of the Jama Masjid suggest borrowing and sharing amongst cultures. Alongside the Arabic calligraphy, the mosque has domes shaped like lotuses, and some of the pillars are carved with bells, a reference to Hindu temples. This reflects adaptation and sensitive homage to customs and traditions, the balance between which continues to be central to contemporary ideas of citizenship. Textbooks might be written but one would hope that stories in stone remain eternal.

Sunrise on a summer day at Humayun’s Tomb in Delhi. After their morning walk around the charbagh, four gentlemen sit on the steps of the sixteenth-century Mughal tomb. The maqbara, commissioned in 1569, was amongst the first monuments to use the combination of red sandstone and white marble, which became a Mughal signature. Over the subsequent centuries, Mughal emperors provided patronage to architects, craftspeople and scholars who led a syncretic artistic and literary flourishing. It is partly due to this legacy that citizens from different cultures and faiths share so much not in spite of but because of their varied backgrounds.