Haveli

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Jaisalmer - Salim Singh ki Haveli (around 1850)

The palatial houses of wealthy - mostly Muslim - long-distance traders in northern India and Pakistan are referred to as Haveli . The name comes from Arabic and means something like "enclosed space"; The term probably reached India via the almost identical Persian word hawli . The havelis of Rajasthan are among the most culturally and historically significant landmarks of the region and are popular with tourists. The term haveli was later transferred to other representative residential buildings.

history

The imposing multi-storey havelis, which were mostly built between 1830 and 1930, can be traced back to an economic heyday of long-distance trade between India, the Ottoman Empire and the European states in the 18th and early 19th centuries. With the gradual collapse of the Ottoman Empire and the displacement of the caravan trade by sea trade, most of the havelis fell into disrepair; the owners moved to the coastal cities and rented the buildings to poorer families in the surrounding area.

description

According to the traditional oriental pattern, the havelis were built around an inner courtyard that was closed on all sides and in some cases provided with a water basin; however, in some later buildings there is no such courtyard. The ground floor was often used as a warehouse and office ; The living rooms, which can be reached via narrow staircases, are located on the upper floors and were mainly furnished with boxes, chests and pillows. Even if the interior was of high quality for the time, the facade of the buildings was given the greatest attention - here the whole wealth of Indo-Islamic architecture unfolds with balconies ( jaroka ), window bars ( jali or maschrabiyya ), Bengali roofs or facade paintings .

distribution

Most of the most beautiful havelis can be found in Rajasthan and especially in Jaisalmer and the Shekhawati region ( Nawalgarh , Mandawa , Jhunjhunu ); but also other cities such as Agra , Lucknow , Udaipur , Jodhpur , Lahore , Peschawar , Multan and the like. a. have some lesser known structures of this type.

photos

Others

Haveli sangit is one with the reasoned from the Indian philosophers Vallabhacharya (1479-1531) Vishnuite Vallabha movement ( Vallabha sampradāya connected) voice tradition of devotional songs ( kirtan ). Sanskrit sangit means "music" and haveli refers to the patronage of this music by the wealthy traders living in the stately homes.

The house or hiding place of Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad (Pakistan) was called Waziristan Haveli .

Web links

Commons : Havelis  - collection of images, videos and audio files