Tomb of Shah Ali Akbar

History

The tomb is octagonal in three well-proportioned storeys, with tapering angle buttresses crowned by turrets — the form of the great Tughluq mausoleum of Shah Rukn-e-Alam, at smaller scale. It is often called a 'mini Rukn-e-Alam'. What its architects added was Mughal: the extensive use of plaster interiors for carved and painted surfaces, a technique they brought from Lahore.

Historical Significance

Evidence that Tughluq architectural form persisted in Multan two centuries after the Tughluqs, absorbing Mughal technique without abandoning its own shape.

Architecture

Each face rises as a pronounced perpendicular wall 11.4 metres high, supported by sloping buttresses — the form that defines Multan. Inside, the walls are plastered and painted in fresco, the deeply recessed arches of each opening divided into horizontal and vertical panels, and two main graves sit on a brick platform under a wooden canopy near the centre.

Why Visit

See it after Rukn-e-Alam. The same building at half the size, two hundred years later, by named architects.

Interesting Facts

• Built in 1585 by Ibrahim and Rajab, sons of Musa of Lahore — the architects are known by name
• Shah Ali Akbar descended from Pir Shamsuddin Sabzwari, who reached Multan around 1201
• It is widely described as a 'mini Rukn-e-Alam'
• Its plaster interior technique was a Mughal import into a Tughluq form