The Taj Mahal is a love story, a sad and beautiful one. If it didn’t exist, we could easily imagine that the story of its construction was simply a fairy tale.

Three hundred years ago, there lived in India an emperor called Shah Jahan. His favorite wife was a beautiful and intelligent woman whom he loved greatly and made his counselor and constant companion. Her title was Mumtaz Mahal; its shortened form, Taj Mahal, means “pride of the palace.”

In the year 1630 this beloved wife of the emperor died. He was so brokenhearted that he thought of giving up his throne. He decided, out of love for his wife, to build her the most beautiful tomb that had ever been seen.

He summoned the best artists and architects from India, Turkey, Persia, and Arabia, and finally, the design was completed. It took more than twenty thousand men working over a period of 18 years to build the Taj Mahal, one of the most beautiful buildings in the world.

The building itself stands on a marble platform 29 metros square and 6.7 meters high. Minarets, or towers, rise from each of the four corners. The Taj itself soars another 61 meters into the air. It is an eight-sided building made of white marble, and inlaid with twelve kinds of semi-precious stones in floral designs as well as with black marble inscriptions from the Koran. (The emperor was of the Muslim faith.) The building materials came from many countries, including Arabia, Egypt, Tibet, and various parts of India.

The emperor planned to build an identical tomb of black marble for himself on the other side of the river connected by a silver bridge. But his son imprisoned him in the palace before he could finish, and for the rest of his of his life he could only gaze across the river at the shrine of his beloved.