The Qutab Minbar
Persian culture was brought into India by various Persianised Turkic and Afghan dynasties. Where the Arab invasions in Byzantine areas changed everything to Arab culture, the opposite happened in Persia. Persians incorporated their new rulers and religion into all areas of their society and the Arab rulers became Persianate. Later on South Asian society was enriched by the influx of Persian-speaking and Islamic scholars, historians, architects, musicians, and other specialists of high Persianate culture who fled the Mongol devastation. The sultans of Delhi, who were of Turko-Afghan origin (eg. Mamluks), modeled their lifestyles after the Persian upper classes. They patronized Persian literature and music, but became especially notable for their architecture, because their builders drew from Irano-Islamic architecture, combining it with Indian traditions to produce a profusion of mosques, palaces, and tombs unmatched in any other Islamic country.