Mandu (Māndū, sometimes known as Shadiabad, Shādī-ābād, City of Joy) was the fortress capital of the central Indian sultanate of Mālwā (independent from 804/1401–2 until 937/1531) and contains some of the finest examples of ninth/fifteenth-century Indian Islamic architecture, from the period between the fall of the Delhi sultanate and the establishment of Mughal rule. [Illustration 1].

It stands at latitude N 22°21′, longitude E 75°26′ on a plateau 633 metres above se…