Essay On Badshahi Mosque

713 Words2 Pages

The entire courtyard is surrounded by hujras or small rooms where the students who had come to stay would probably have been provided with accommodation. These students would have studied at the madrassa at the mosque because in those times almost all the mosques also served as madrassas (religious schools). They would have learned the holy Quran and Arabic from the Imam and other resident scholars of the Badshahi mosque. The British demolished the hujras on the east side of the mosque so that this mosque could not be turned into a fort to be used against the British. An interesting thing about this mosque is that although it has been built on an extremely grand scale and no apparent expense has been omitted in decorating it yet their are only two inscriptions on the entire mosque. One is the inscription on the main gate, which gives us the name of the founder of the mosque along with the name of the supervisor and the date of its completion.. The second inscription is the Kalimah on the wall of the central prayer chamber. Why was the mosque not adorned by more Quranic verses or the Ahadis of the holy Prophet (peace be upon him) is a mystery, which offers no solutions. 0ne possible theory is that emperor Aurangzeb who was the patron of this mosque was a very strong Wahhabi Muslim and thus as is the practice of Wahhabis that they do not adorn their buildings with pictures murals or other embellishments so Aurangzeb ordered this mosque to be laid out in such a simple design. The use of red sandstone is widely seen in the construction of the mosque. This red stone was originally mined at a quarry in Jaipur in India and was carted to Lahore. Incidentally when the mosque underwent a massive renovation program in modern times the govern...

... middle of paper ...

...ty minarets of the Badshahi mosque t. this gave his sharpshooters a high stance from where they could easily pick their targets inside the fort as the minars are much higher than the boundary wall of the fort and provide an excellent vantage point. Some time later when Hera Singh besieged the fort he actually placed light infantry guns called zamburahs atop the minars so that he could bombard the Sindhanwalia Sardars who were in control of the Lahore fort at that time. The mosque remained under the control of the Sikhs until the annexation of Punjab by the British in 1856. It was during this year that Sir John Lawrence who was at that time the commissioner of Lahore conferred with the government and the military commander of the area and had the mosque decreed back to the Muslims of the city. The Muslims of Lahore went on record and wrote ` formal letter of gratitude

More about Essay On Badshahi Mosque

Open Document