<P> Indo - Persian culture has helped produce certain composite traditions within the Indian subcontinent that survive to this day, of which the Urdu language and literature is notable . The legacy of Indo - Persianate culture moreover can also be seen in much of the Mughal architecture within Lahore, Delhi and Agra, latterly of which the Taj Mahal is world - renowned . Hindustani classical music also received some influence from the Persian culture, but the nature of these influences remain unclear . In many ways, the absorption and assimilation of Persian or Persianate culture within India may be compared to the gradual (if sometimes problematic) absorption of English, British or Western culture generally of which the English language is perhaps the most notable and controversial within both India and Pakistan today . The influence of Persian language moreover may be seen in the considerable proportion of loanwords absorbed into the vernaculars of the north and north - west of the Indian subcontinent including Punjabi, Gujarati, Urdu, Hindi, Kashmiri and Pashto . </P> <P> With the presence of Muslim culture in the region in the Ghaznavid period, Lahore and Uch were established as centers of Persian literature . Abu - al - Faraj Runi and Masud Sa'd Salman (d . 1121) were the two earliest major Indo - Persian poets based in Lahore . The earliest of the "great" Indo - Persian poets was Amir Khusrow (d . 1325) of Delhi, who has since attained iconic status within the Urdu speakers of the Indian subcontinent as, among other things, the "father" of Urdu literature . </P> <P> Indo - Persian culture and to varying degrees also Turkic culture flourished side - by - side during the period of the Delhi Sultanate (1206--1526). The invasion of Babur in 1526, the end of the Delhi Sultanate, and the establishment of what would become the Mughal Empire would usher the golden age of Indo - Persian culture with particular reference to the art and architecture of the Mughal era . </P> <P> The Mughal Era to the British Raj: Persian persisted as the language of the Mughals up to and including the year 1707 which marked the death of the Emperor Aurangzeb, generally considered the last of the "Great Mughals". Thereafter, with the decline of the Mughal empire, the 1739 invasion of Delhi by Nader Shah and the gradual growth initially of the Hindu Marathas and later the European power within the Indian subcontinent, Persian or Persian culture commenced a period of decline although it nevertheless enjoyed patronage and may even have flourished within the many regional empires or kingdoms of the Indian subcontinent including that of the Sikh Maharaja Ranjit Singh (r . 1799--1837). </P>

The taj mahal was built by the 17 th-century moslem emperor for what purpose