Ala-ud-din conceived a very ambitious construction programme when he decided to build the second tower of victory when he returned in triumph from his Deccan campaign. However, the Sultan died before even the first storey was finished and the project was abondoned.
Ala-ud-Din, felt compelled to increase even further the size of the Quwwatu'l Islam mosque. His scheme called for increasing the size of the enclosure four times, providing ceremonial entrance gateways on each side, and a great minar, twice the size of the Qutub.
This is the unfinished base of the mammoth tower begun by Alauddin Khilji intended to give competition to Qutub Minar.
With an arched entrance and spearhead of fringes, identified as lotus buds by scholars, the Alai Minar is a gigantic rubble structure.
A short distance west of the enclosure, in Mehrauli village, is the Tomb of Adham Khan who, according to legend drove the beautiful Hindu singer Rupmati to suicide following the capture of Mandu in Madhya Pradesh. When Akbar became displeased with him he ended up being heaved off a terrace in the Agra Fort. There are some summer palaces in the area and the tombs of the last Mughal kings of Delhi. An empty space between two of the tombs was intended for the last king of Delhi, who died in exile in Rangoon, Burma, in 1862, following his implication in the 1857 Indian Mutiny.
