Shah Jahan Mosque, Thatta
The Shah Jahan Mosque in Thatta, in the Pakistani province of Sindh, carries 93 domes. That is more than any other structure in Pakistan. The building is also known as the Jamia Masjid of Thatta, and it serves as the central mosque of the city. Yet it has no minarets at all. Its builders spent their effort on blue tile and patterned brick instead, and the result is often described as the most elaborate display of tile work in South Asia. Several questions hang over the building. Why would an emperor fund a grand mosque in a provincial city he did not even visit during construction? How did the styles of Central Asia end up on its walls? And what do local traditions say about a prayer niche that once pointed in the wrong direction?
Roughly 100 km from Karachi, the mosque stands in eastern Thatta, a city that served as the capital of Sindh in the 16th and 17th centuries. The capital was later shifted to nearby Hyderabad. The mosque sits close to the Makli Necropolis, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
The story behind it begins with a family quarrel. Shah Jahan, before he was emperor, rebelled against his father, the Emperor Jahangir. He fled to Thatta looking for refuge. The Sindhi people treated him with a hospitality that impressed him deeply. When he held the throne himself, he ordered a mosque built as a token of his gratitude.
A second motive may have played a part. In 1637 a devastating storm struck the region and nearly destroyed Thatta. A grand new mosque may have been meant, in part, to ease the damage the city had suffered.
The emperor was not in the region while the work went on, so he was unlikely to have taken a direct hand in it. Still, the profuse tile work and intricate brickwork suggest that the money came from the imperial treasury of the Mughals.
In 1592 the Mughals annexed Sindh, which had been ruled by the Tarkhans. That dynasty had come from Central Asia, and it carried with it the building habits of the Timurids, a tradition of extensive brickwork and blue tile. Those habits were already part of the local landscape long before the mosque was designed.
A second current arrived from the north. Shortly before the mosque was designed, Shah Jahan's armies were campaigning toward Samarkand, in modern-day Uzbekistan. As they pressed forward, Timurid influences flowed into the Mughal Empire itself.
The mosque therefore draws on two streams of the same heritage, one local and one fresh from the battlefield. Its overall look is plainly Turkic and Persian. The clearest evidence of that inheritance covers the dome and the walls.
Four colors dominate the mosque's tiles: cobalt blue, turquoise, manganese violet and white. The dome shows blue and white tile arranged in stellated patterns, meant to represent the heavens. On the walls, calligraphy is worked in tile and signed by two craftsmen, Abdul Ghafur and Abdul Sheikh.
The Wazir Khan Mosque in Lahore, another mosque of Shah Jahan's reign, offers a useful contrast. That building uses fresco, while the Thatta mosque does not. The Lahore tiles also carry a single color each. At Thatta, several colors share a single tile.
The placement and arrangement of the tiles show Persian Safavid influence. The multicolored tiles and floral patterns recall the Persian city of Kashan, whose name lies behind the term Kashani.
Concentric rings of brick curl across the underside of the peripheral domes. They are one of two places where the mosque's brickwork is most striking. The other is the arcades that surround the central courtyard.
Geometric brick patterns are an unusual decoration for a mosque of the Mughal era. The builders borrowed the idea from Timurid architecture. They also drew on Sindhi vernacular styles, which had themselves absorbed Persian architecture over time. The brick of Thatta is therefore a local craft with a Persian ancestry, set into an imperial commission.
Visitors enter the mosque complex through a Persian-style charbagh, a quadrangle garden. Beyond it lies a rectangular courtyard measuring 169 ft by 97 ft. Aisled galleries enclose it, lined with 33 arches.
The plan has four iwans, or portals, one in each cardinal direction. The main prayer hall lies to the west of the courtyard. The overall form follows a caravanserai, with a great courtyard ringed by domed apartments. The conservative Timurid-style Humayun Mosque in Kachhpura, near Agra in modern-day India, may have inspired the layout.
Pierced screens decorate the mihrab. Such screens are common on Mughal funerary monuments but rare in Mughal mosques.
The acoustics are remarkable. A person speaking at one end of the dome can be heard at the other end once the voice exceeds 100 decibels. Prayers recited in the main hall carry through the entire building.
Persian inscriptions at the mosque indicate that it was built between 1644 and 1647. According to local tradition, the work contained a serious flaw. The mihrab, the niche marking the direction of prayer, had been set out incorrectly, so it did not point toward Mecca.
The planners are said to have approached Makhdum Nooh, a Sufi mystic buried in the nearby city of Hala. Popular tradition holds that he corrected the error overnight through the power of his prayer. That feat is said to have secured his standing as a saint.
The documentary record tells a plainer story. Historical records show that the mihrab was actually rebuilt a century after the mosque was constructed.
An eastern addition was completed in 1659, during the reign of Emperor Aurangzeb. He returned to the building in 1692 to carry out restoration work. A later round of repairs followed in 1812, undertaken by Murad Ali Khan Talpur.
In 1993 the mosque was inscribed on the tentative UNESCO World Heritage list. Recognition has not brought the same level of care as some of its peers have received. The mosque has not been conserved to the standard of the Wazir Khan Mosque or the Badshahi Mosque in northern Pakistan, and those two buildings now set the benchmark that Thatta has yet to meet.
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Common questions
Where is the Shah Jahan Mosque located?
It stands in eastern Thatta, in the Pakistani province of Sindh, about 100 km from Karachi and near the Makli Necropolis.
Why was the mosque built?
Shah Jahan ordered it as a token of gratitude for the hospitality the Sindhi people showed him when he took refuge in Thatta after rebelling against his father, Jahangir. It may also have been meant to help ease the damage from a devastating storm in 1637.
When was the mosque built?
Persian inscriptions indicate it was built between 1644 and 1647. An eastern addition was completed in 1659.
What makes the mosque unusual?
It has 93 domes, the most of any structure in Pakistan, and no minarets. Its geometric brickwork is also unusual for a Mughal-era mosque.
What colors are used in the tile work?
The tiles are cobalt blue, turquoise, manganese violet and white. Several colors appear on a single tile.
Was the mihrab really corrected by a saint?
Popular tradition says Makhdum Nooh fixed the misaligned mihrab overnight through prayer. Historical records show the mihrab was actually rebuilt a century after the mosque was constructed.
All sources
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- 9BookThe Calligraphers of ThattaM.A. Ghafur — Indus Publications — 2004