Jama Masjid (Delhi)
The Jama Masjid (also Jami Masjid ; Urdu جامع مسجد, in Devanagari : जामा मस्जिद, “ Friday mosque ”), actually Masjid-i Jahan Numa ( Persian مسجد-ا جہاں نما “mosque that shows the world”), in Delhi is the largest mosque in India and one of the largest in the Islamic world.
location
The mosque is located on an elevation up to 9 m high in places in the center of Shahjahanabad , the old town of Delhi named after the Mughal Mughal Shah Jahan . It is only about 400 m from the Red Fort .
Building history
The construction took place at the behest of Shah Jahan between 1650 and 1656 (according to other sources between 1644 and 1658) under the supervision of Allami Said Khan and Fazl Khan; around 5,000 craftsmen were involved.
architecture
The Jama Masjid rises on the west side of a walled courtyard, which is accessible via open stairs ascending from three sides and three two-story gateways. The core of the building consists of bricks fired on site , which were essentially clad with red sandstone slabs from Rajasthan. The facade is partially clad with white marble , in which Persian inscriptions are embedded. The eastern and largest gate was previously reserved for the Mughal emperor. The mosque is closed off by three white onion domes with vertical black stripes , the middle one overhanging the others. The domes are also made of white marble, the strips of black marble. The Qibla wall with the prayer niche ( mihrab ) of the prayer hall supported by 260 pillars is oriented towards Mecca in the west.
There is room for more than 25,000 believers in the almost square courtyard ( sahn ) with sides of around 90 m each; it is lined with side arcades ( riwaqs ) . In the middle there is a water basin for the purification ( wudū ' ) prescribed in the Koran before prayer.
The front of the mosque is designed completely symmetrically - the high central iwan- like portal ( pishtak ) is joined by five arcades on both sides, at the end of which a 40 m high minaret rises up. Each of the two minarets is crowned by a twelve-sided, open miniature pavilion ( chhatri ) . The portal is at the corners of a combination of Guldastas (lotus buds) and miniature pavilion ( guldasta chhatri ) crowned.
Web links
- Jama Masjid, Delhi (English)
Individual proof
- ^ Kiyo Iizuka: Shah Jahan's Concept of Town Planning in Delhi. in Journal of the Islamic Environmental Design Research Center 1-2. (1991), p. 30 Archive link ( Memento of the original dated February 7, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
Coordinates: 28 ° 39 ′ 3 ″ N , 77 ° 13 ′ 59 ″ E