Ahmedabad · IN
Shahi Jama Masjid Ahmedabad
On the north side of Ahmedabad's old walled city, where the royal processional road runs past the triple-arched Teen Darwaja gate, the Shahi Jama Masjid rises in warm yellow sandstone. Sultan Ahmed Shah I—the ruler who founded Ahmedabad in 1411—completed this Friday Mosque on 4 January 1424, and an inscription in its central mihrab still records the date. In its own time it was probably the largest mosque on the Indian subcontinent, and six centuries later it remains one of the most beautiful and one of the most active.
What makes the Jama Masjid so rewarding is how completely it captures the birth of a regional style. Built from a base of pillars, some reused from earlier Hindu and Jain temples, it fuses Indo-Islamic plans with the carved temple craft of Gujarat into something entirely its own—a forest of slender columns, a hall of domes carved like lotus buds, and light filtered through pierced stone screens. The mosque is a Monument of National Importance and the architectural centrepiece of the UNESCO-listed Old City, set within easy walking distance of Bhadra Fort, the royal tombs and the food stalls of Manek Chowk.