I don't know who "your people" are, but they obviously aren't Edumund Burke or Immanual Kant, because they would have found the idea of "sublime symmetry" to be an oxymoron, since the entire idea of the sublime, as they theorized it, was that it was an aesthetic quality defined by the immense and the terrible, that which seemed beyond man's powers of reason and understanding.

I don't care how impressed you are with the Villa Rotunda. I was using it to deflate your argument that the alleged prohibition on naturalistic representation found in the Hadith led Islamic artisans to some superior mastery of symmetry. It has a far clearer symmetrical balance than, say the Great Mosque of Cordoba, yet it was built in a culture with absolutely no prohibition on representation. Symmetry is symmetry It can be mastered by anybody.

I don't consider the Taj Mahal to be a "Cosmoplitan style" any more than I consider it to be an "Islamic style". I do not think using "style" that broadly has any functional art historical value or meaning. What is the "Christian style"? Is it Chartres or St. Peter's? What's the "Western style"? Is it Villa Savoye or the Pantheon? What is the "Islamic style," is it the Great Mosque of Cordoba or the Taj Mahal?

If we must categorize every building as a particular style, then the Taj Mahal is Mughal or, more specifically, Shah Jahani.

Now the question becomes how do we understand Mughal style architecture? Does it make sense to say, well the Mughals were Muslim, so everything about it represents an Islamic way of building? Or does it make more sense to say the Mughals were Muslims who were nonetheless proud that their lineage could be traced to Ghengis Khan, had conquered a foreign people whom they nevertheless drew cultural inspiration from (particularly Akbar), and held international court where they delightedly accepted gifts from all over the world, including Europe? In the latter case, Islam forms the basis of their culture and their building heritage, but it is not some monolith that dictates a particular way of building, but a complex and living tradition that they used selectively (in combination with other traditions) to shape their own understanding of themselves.

Here are the problems if you consider the Taj Mahal simply an exemplary "Islamic" monument:

1. You have to explain why this exemplary monument is a tomb, when the Hadith forbid the erection of tombs.

2. You have to account for the symbolic connotations of material in red sandstone and white marble, which does not have broad usage across the Islamic world, although it can be accounted for if one turns to the Vishnudharmottara-purana.

3. You have to invent a non-existent Islamic history of pietra-dure prior to its adoption by Shah Jahan's court.

4. You have to ignore the resemblance between inlaid and stuccoed flower vases at the Taj Mahal and those illustrated in European scientific herbals, even though it is known they were disseminated among Shah Jahan's artists.

5. You have to explain how the onion dome is a specifically Islamic form, if it isn't used at, say, the Dome of the Rock, but can be found on any number of Russian Orthodox churches.

6. You have to explain why the chattris that flank the dome can't be found anywhere in the Muslim world besides India.

But, you may protest, I haven't talked about pishtaqs, minarets, char bagh gardens, or hasht bihisht plans. Surely these are all "Islamic" features of the building. After all, the char bagh is supposed to mirror Qur'anic descriptions of the gardens of paradise, the hasht bihisht plan has similar paradisic connotations, and the pishtaq and the minaret have functional roles in mosques (the former is used for the display of Qur'anic inscriptions, the latter for calls to prayer). So yes, these are all features that come from a specifically Islamic context. Nevertheless, they do not represent some pan-Islamic style, because one can find plenty of buildings that do not have these features. In fact, the Taj Mahal is only the second major Mughal tomb to include minarets. Further, in the case of the hasht bihisht and the char bagh, they have extremely ancient pedigrees that predate the life of Mohammad. So these purely "Islamic" features are themselves tainted with connotations that extend far beyond Islam.

Oh by the way, I have spent about seven years in Europe on a number of trips too many to recall and a year in India on four separate trips, one of which included the obligatory trip to Agra, and I love lots of mosques, tombs, and palaces that were erected by Muslims. But frankly that's irrelevant.

And finally, I do agree with you on one point. This was an excellent series of articles, one of the best I have seen in Slate.