Jami Masjid of Gujarat Sultanate, Ahmedabad
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Located in the Bhadra area of Ahmedabad city, the Jama or Jami masjid (mosque) or the Jumah (Friday) mosque was built in sandstone during the reign of Ahmad Shah I (r.1411-1442) of the Muzaffarid dynasty of the Gujarat Sultanate in 1424 CE. Some historians consider this medieval structure as one of the most beautiful in the east while others view it as one of the most imposing. It is one of the significant specimens of Gujarati style of architecture with its intricate stone carvings and delicate jali work. Its towering minarets, ornate mihrab, huge courtyard, airy prayer hall, and other such features exhibit extremely fine craftsmanship. In today's time, the mosque offers some moments of tranquility in the midst of the hustle and bustle of the old city.
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Some of the other prominent tourist attractions nearby are the Sidi Sayyid Masjid, Ahmad Shah's Mosque or Juni Juma Masjid Bahdra Fort, Teen Darwaza and Manek Chowk. If the weather is pleasant, you can walk from the Sidi Sayyid Mosque to Ahmad Shah's Mosque and then to the Bhadra Fort. When I visited the fort, the renovation work was in progress, and unfortunately, a large portion of the building was inaccessible to the visitors. Right next to the entrance gate of the fort is a Hindu goddess temple, Bhadrakali temple which is visited by many devotees.
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From the fort, you can walk to the Teen Darwaza and around this structure, one notices a number of shops and hawkers, selling all kinds of daily use products such as clothes, utensils, fruits, vegetables, seafood, chicken, mutton, etc., because of which the Teen Darwaza market gets very crowded.
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When you pass through the Teen Darwaza, do check out its magnificent motifs carved on it. As you walk straight from the Teen Darwaza, you come across the Jami Masjid. Since it is a scared space, the visitors or those who come to offer their prayers are required to remove their shoes before entering it.
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When you enter the mosque, after all the sight-seeing and walking and noticing a lot of activity in the locality, you instantly feel calm and delightful to explore its exquisite architectural features. However, being a woman, I was forbidden to enter the prayer hall.
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Nevertheless, when my eyes fell on its minarets, the facade, and the intricate motifs on the walls, I just could not help admiring this iconic beauty carved on stone!
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The stone plaques inside the prayer hall reads:
Structures of its class in the world built on usual mosque plan with extensive courtyard, it has a spacious prayer hall partly of the pillared hall variety on the west and enclosed by pillared corridors on the other three sides having entrance porticos on eastern, northern and southern sides. The prayer hall is roofed by fifteen principal domes with some three hundred tall, slender and graceful stone pillars. The facade of the prayer hall is remarkable for its rhythmical elevation, graceful curves of the archways and richly carved and panelled two buttresses on each side of the central archway, now devoid of lofty minarets which collapsed in 1819. The mosque also provides a perfect arrangement of admitting light into the prayer hall by raising the central compartment to three stories with galleries enclosed by panels of beautiful stone grills- a device invariably copied in the subsequent mosques of western India.
In the early 17th c., the mosque was visited by the fourth Mughal Emperor, Jahangir (r. 1605-1627) and he described the monument in the following lines in his memoirs, Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri:
...I went to see the Jami' mosque, and gave with my own hand in alms to the fakirs who were present there about 500 rupees. This mosque was one of the memorials of Sultan Ahmad, the founder of the city of Ahmedabad. It has three gates, and on each side a bazar. Opposite the gate that looks towards the east is the mausoleum of the said Sultan Ahmad. In that dome Sultan Ahmad, his son Muhammad, and his grandson Qutbu-d-din are laid to rest. The length of the court of the mosque, excluding maqsura (the holy of holies), is 103 cubits, and its breadth 89 cubits. Round this they have made an aywan (portico), in breadth 4 3/4 cubits. The flooring of the court is of trimmed bricks, and the pillars of the portico of red stone. The maqsura contains 354 pillars, above which there is a dome. The length of the maqsura is 75 cubits, and its breadth 37 cubits. The flooring of the maqsura, the mihrab (arch towards which the face is turned in prayer), and the pulpit are made of marble. On both sides of the main arch (pish-taq) are two polished minarets of cut stone, containing three ashyana (stories) beautifully shaped and decorated. On the right-hand side of the pulpit near the recess of the maqsura they have made a separate seat for the king. The space between the pillars has been covered in with a stone platform, and round this up to the roof of the maqsura they have put stone cages (in which women sit so as not to be seen). The object of this was that when the king came to the Friday service or the 'Id he went up there with his inmates and courtiers, and performed his devotions. This in the dialect of the country they call the Maluk-khana (King's chamber). This practice and caution were on account of the crowding of the people. Truly this mosque is a very noble building.
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