Taj Mahal purses—are allowed inside the Taj Mahal. Ever since its construction, the building has been the source of an admiration transcending culture and geography, and so personal and emotional responses have consistently eclipsed scholastic appraisals of the monument. A longstanding myth holds that Shah Jahan planned a mausoleum to be built in black marble as a Black Taj Mahal across the Yamuna river. The idea originates from fanciful writings of Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, a European traveller who visited Agra in 1665. It was suggested that Shah Jahan was overthrown by his son Aurangzeb before it could be built. Ruins of blackened marble
Origins and architecture of the Taj Mahal Lahouri, writes that Jahan would make "appropriate alterations to whatever the skillful architects designed after many thoughts, and asked competent questions." Two architects "are" mentioned by name, Ustad Ahmad Lahauri and Mir Abd-ul Karim in writings by Lahauri's son Lutfullah Muhandis. Ustad Ahmad Lahauri had laid the foundations of the Red Fort at Delhi. Mir Abd-ul Karim had been the favourite architect of the previous emperor Jahangir and is mentioned as a supervisor, together with Makramat Khan, of the construction of the Taj Mahal. In the complex, passages from the Qur'an are used as decorative elements. Recent scholarship suggests that