Qutb Minar

This guide to the Qutb Minar in Delhi opens on a December morning in 1981, when the lights went out inside the packed spiral staircase and panic swept through hundreds of visitors climbing the tower. It traces the sultan who began the minaret in 1199, Qutb-ud-din Aibak, and the son-in-law who finished it after his death, through eight centuries of lightning strikes and monsoons that the tower survived. Look up at the red sandstone spiral from ground level — that staircase inside has stood empty for decades.