The pre-Turkish forms like lintel and beam were replaced by true arches and vaults and the spired roofs (shikhad) by domes.
Arches are made in a variety of shapes, but in India the pointed form of the Islamic world was directly inherited.
And sometime in second quarter of the 14th century, another variant of the pointed form, the four-centred arch, was introduced by the Tughlaqs in their buildings. It remained in vogue till the end of Sultanate Period.
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Building Material :
Early Turkish buildings in India used richly carved capitals, columns, shafts and lintels from pre-Turkish buildings.
In India, towards the beginning of the 14th century when the supply of such material had exhausted, buildings were raised by using originally quaried or manufactured material. In the masonry work, stone has been used abundantly.
The foundations are mostly of rough and small rubble or, wherever it is available, of river boulders, while the superstructure is of dressed stone or roughly shaped coarsed stonework. However, in either case, the buildings were plastered all over.
Image Source: 185.26.182.219/Rqae5eb53b-c103-49e4-a363-9cb05f81161d
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The material commonly used for plastering buildings was gypsum. Apparently lime-plaster was reserved for places that needed to be secured against the leakage of water, such as roofs, canals, drains, etc.
In the later period, i.e., around 15th century, gypsum mortar was preferred for plaster work on the walls and the ceiling
Decoration :
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In Sultanate buildings no one type of decoration was reserved for a particular type of building.
Calligraphy is an important element of the decorative art in the buildings of this period. The Quranic sayings are inscribed on buildings in an angular, sober and monumental script, known as Kufi.
Geometric shapes in abrstract form are used in many buildings in a bewildering variety of combinations. Of the foliations, the dominant form of decoration employed in Sultanate buildings, is the arabesque.
It is characterized by a continuous stem which splits regularly, producing a series of leafy secondary stems which can in turn split again or reintegrate into the main stem.
The repetition of this pattern produces a beautifully balanced design with a three dimensional effect.