A jali is a perforated stone or latticed screen, with ornamental patterns that draw on the compositional rhythms of calligraphy and geometry. In the parts of India, western Asia and the Mediterranean where solar rays are strongest and brightest, ustads (or master artisans) were able to evolve an aesthetic language of light, giving it form and shape through lattices of stone and other materials. Jalis share a common aim of bringing filtered light into enclosed spaces, while providing protection and privacy. Additionally, they shape the atmosphere of a sacred space, augment the grandeur of palaces and enhance the charm of domestic interiors. This book explores the delicate beauty of more than two hundred jalis across India, from seventeenth-century examples in Agra to those designed by global contemporary artists influenced by historical styles. The expansive volume covers the temple-inspired designs of the Gujarat Sultanate, imperial symbolism and Sufi allusions in Mughal jalis, the innovations and adaptations of jalis across Rajasthan and central India and, further south, calligraphy in pierced stone in the Deccan. With contributions by American art historian Mitchell Abdul Karim Crites, George Michell, a scholar on South Asian architecture, and Ebba Koch, a leading authority on Mughal architecture and art, this lavishly illustrated publication reveals the poetry etched in these stone screens. Navina Najat Haidar is Nasser Sabah al-Ahmad al-Sabah Curator-in-Charge of the Department of Islamic Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. She was involved in the planning of the museum’s permanent galleries for Islamic art and has also organized a number of special exhibitions at The Met. Haidar is co-author of Masterpieces from the Department of Islamic Art in The Metropolitan Museum of Art (2011) and Sultans of Deccan India, 1500-1700: Opulence and Fantasy (2015).