| The Taj Mahal was built between 1632 and 1653 on the orders of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan, as a memorial to his wife, Mumtaz Mahal (“chosen of the palace”), who died giving birth to their fourteenth child. The total height of the tomb is 243 feet (74 m), and it overlooks the Yamuna River in Agra, in northern India. This white marble mausoleum, adorned with fine carvings (Koranic verses and floral and geometric motifs) and semiprecious stones, was created by 30 architects and 20,000 workers. The building was declared a UNESCO world heritage site in 1983. In the twentieth century the building began to show the effects of industrial pollution. In 1993, 212 factories in Agra were shut down in order to preserve the structure’s whiteness, which in the Muslim faith symbolizes the purity of the soul. India has about 140 million Muslim inhabitants, making it the second-largest Muslim nation in the world after Indonesia. The country’s first religion is Hinduism, which is practiced by 80 percent of the population. The approximately 830 million Hindi in India represent nearly all of the world’s devotees of this religion, which is the third-largest on earth. |
.&title2=Taj Mahal in Agra, Uttar Pradesh, India (27°10’ N, 78°03’ E). &title3= "download in wallpaper")
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