Wazir Khan Mosque

Interesting facts

The mosque contains the first known charsu, a Central Asian-style bazaar laid out along four axes, to appear in South Asia.

Wazir Khan came from Chiniot, a town famed for wood and stone carving, and artisans from there were brought to work on the mosque.

The Quranic verses in tile were designed by the calligrapher Haji Yousaf Kashmiri, while Persian verses came from Muhammad Ali, a disciple of the Sufi Mian Mir.

Frescoes inside show paired trees, wine pitchers and platters of fruit, imagery understood as allusions to the Islamic Paradise.

A Persian inscription at the gate addresses farmers, reminding them that whatever is sown in this world will be harvested in the next.

The mosque was raised on the remains of an older Sufi complex, which is why a 14th-century saint's tomb lies within its courtyard.

Work on the building was completed in 1641, and the name of its architect has never been recorded.

In the late 1880s John Lockwood Kipling, father of Rudyard Kipling, wrote about the mosque's tilework in the Journal of Indian Art.

Its walls are built of brick bedded in kantar lime, then sheathed in glazed tile mosaic and true fresco painted on wet plaster.

In 2015 the whole mosque was digitally recorded with 3D mapping by Lahore University of Management Sciences with USAID support.

Why it is worth it

Inside the crowded lanes of Lahore's Walled City, a short walk from the Delhi Gate, the Wazir Khan Mosque is the most lavishly decorated building the Mughal era left in the Punjab. It was commissioned by Hakim Ilmuddin Ansari, a physician who rose to be governor of Lahore under Shah Jahan and is remembered by his title, Wazir Khan. Construction started around 1634–1635 and took about seven years. The mosque stands on the old Shahi Guzargah, the royal road that ran from the gate towards the fort, and it was conceived as part of a wider civic complex rather than as a solitary shrine.

What sets it apart is surface. Almost every face is covered with kashi-kari, the Punjabi mosaic of glazed tile, in blues, yellows, greens and ochres, forming flowering vines, cypresses and bands of Arabic and Persian calligraphy. Indoors the walls and vaults carry painted frescoes that fuse imperial Mughal motifs with local Punjabi taste, and the building contains early examples of muqarnas vaulting in the Mughal repertoire. Four minarets about 107 feet high mark the corners of the courtyard, which is lined with 32 small cells once used for study, while the prayer hall is crowned by five domes.

The mosque was designed to pay for itself. Shops built into its fabric, including a bazaar of calligraphers, were let as a waqf, their rents funding its upkeep. In the courtyard, below ground, lies the tomb of the Sufi saint Syed Muhammad Ishaq Gazruni, known as Miran Badshah. Since 2009 the building and its square have been restored in a programme led by the Aga Khan Trust for Culture with the Punjab government, and the mosque has been on Pakistan's UNESCO tentative list since 1993. Come in the late afternoon, when the low light brings the tilework on the minarets to life.

Getting there

The mosque is in the Walled City of Lahore, about 260 m west of Delhi Gate along the old royal road, about 4 km from central Lahore. Allama Iqbal International Airport (LHE) is roughly 10 km from the mosque. Vehicles can reach Delhi Gate, from where the last stretch is on foot through the bazaar.

From the encyclopaedia

The Wazir Khan Mosque is a 17th-century Mughal mosque located in the city of Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. The mosque was commissioned by the then governor of Lahore, Wazir Khan, during the reign of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan as a part of an ensemble of buildings that also included the nearby Wazir Khan Hammam baths. Construction of the mosque began in 1634, and was completed in 1641.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Wazir Khan Mosque

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

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From the encyclopaedia