to select a design were paralleled by the efforts of the Jinnah's sister, Fatima Jinnah, who sought input from the public in the design of a monument to her brother. Fatima Jinnah effectively vetoed the 1957 proposal, and assumed control of the QMF. She then commissioned architect Yahya Merchant, a Bombay based architect who was a personal friend of Jinnah, to design the monument. President Ayub Khan laid the foundation stone for the monument on July 31, 1960. It was inaugurated by Yahya Khan on 18 January 1971. The gardens surrounding the mausoleum were not completed until December 24, 2000. Proposed designs Numerous proposals were submitted by Pakistani citizens following independence – ranging from a shrine, to a neo-Mughal monument. The idealists suggestions directly from ordinary Pakistani citizens reflected the "radical utopianism" that swept through the Muslims of the subcontinent around the Pakistan Movement. In 1954, an Indian architect was selected to design the mausoleum, but his design could not gain consensus among members of the QMF, and so was dismissed. In 1955, a Turkish architect was hired, but his plan was rejected as being "too elaborate," and "almost despotic." The QMF's mandate stalled as consensus over the design was lacking. Proposals from the Malay engineer and architect Ainuddin, suggested a complex reminiscent of a Sufi shrine, with mosques, libraries, school, restaurants, and shops to merge into the fabric of the city. 1957, the Government of Pakistan held an international competition to design a new mausoleum for Jinnah. 6 of the 8 jurists were European modernist architects. The 1957 competition was won by William Whitfield of the modernist Reglan Squire and Partners firm. The plan called for an avant-garde neo-futurist mausoleum mounted on an elevated platform in a neo-Mughal garden, with a central parabola and pointed edges at its six corners reaching out "in an exuberant motion towards the sky." Following the 1958 coup of President Ayub Khan, who presented himself as a modernizer, the Whitfield-Squire proposal gained favor among the military elite, although public reception was not warm. Fatima Jinnah opposed Whitfield's plan on several fronts, including its design, its selection by an international rather than Pakistani jury, and the fact that it was awarded to a British national, which challenged the desire of Pakistanis for a de-colonial future. Fatima Jinnah then assumed control of the design process, and chose the proposals of architect Yahya Merchant, a Bombay based