Taj Mahal Agra India

European traveler Johan
Albert Mandelslo,who visited Agra in 1638 (only seven years after Mumtaz's
death), describes the life of the cit y in his memoirs. But he makes no
reference to the Taj Mahal being built. The writings of Peter Mundy, an
English visitor to Agra within a year of Mumtaz's death, also suggest the
Taj was a noteworthy building well before Shah Jahan's time.

Furthermore, Oak cites several documents suggesting the Taj Mahal predates
Shah Jahan's era, and was a temple dedicated to Shiva, worshipped by
Rajputs of Agra city. For example, Prof. Marvin Miller of New York took a
few
samples from the riverside doorway of the Taj. Carbon dating tests revealed
that the door was 300 years older than Shah Jahan.

Oak
also says the love story of Mumtaz and Shah Jahan is a fairy tale cre ated
by
court sycophants, blundering historians and sloppy archaeologists Not a
single royal chronicle of Shah Jahan's time corroborates the love story.

Firstly, her name was never Mumtaz Mahal but Mumtaz-ul-Zamani ," he writes.
Secondly, one cannot omit the first three letters 'Mum' from a woman's
name to derive the remainder as the name for the building."Taj Mahal, he
claims, is a corrupt version of Tejo Mahalaya, or Lord Shiva's Palace .

He says

the term " Mahal " has never been used for a building in any Muslim countries
from Afghanisthan to Algeria . "The unusual explanation that the term Taj
Mahal derives from Mumtaz Mahal was illogical in atleast two respects.