Wazir Khan Mosque

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Wazir Khan Mosque stands in the Walled City of Lahore, along the ancient road Mughal nobles once traveled toward the Lahore Fort. Completed in 1641, it is considered the most ornately decorated mosque of the Mughal era. In the late 1880s, John Lockwood Kipling visited the site and wrote about its decorative surfaces in the Journal of Indian Art. He was the father of Rudyard Kipling, and he was drawn to what the building contained.

  By the early 20th century, the mosque had deteriorated significantly. That a structure of such complexity survived at all raises questions worth pursuing. Who built it, and for what purpose? Why does the mosque's interior carry painted imagery that seems more at home in a garden pavilion than in a house of prayer? And what later drew multiple foreign governments into a partnership to preserve it? The answers begin with one man: Hakim Ilam-ud-din Ansari, known to history by his royal title of Wazir Khan.

• 2. The Royal Physician

  ›

  Wazir Khan held two roles in Shah Jahan's Mughal empire: royal physician to the court, and subahdar, or Viceroy, of Punjab. Near Lahore's Delhi Gate, he owned substantial property. When he commissioned a mosque on that land in 1634, he had a specific purpose.

  The site held an older shrine to a Sufi holy man named Miran Badshah. Wazir Khan wanted to enclose that tomb within a grander structure. The Maryam Zamani Mosque had served as Lahore's main venue for Friday congregational prayers; the new mosque was intended to supersede it.

  For his builders, Wazir Khan recruited craftsmen from Chiniot, his hometown. Chiniot was already renowned for its wood carving and stonework. The chief architect's name was never inscribed anywhere on the completed building. Several prominent architects were active in Lahore during construction: Ali Mardan Khan, Ahmad Lahori, Ala-ul-Mulk Tuni, and Abdul Karim. Nothing on any wall connects any of them to the mosque's design.

  Miran Badshah, whose full name was Syed Muhammad Ishaq Gazruni, had died in the 14th century. His remains were placed in a subterranean crypt beneath the courtyard. The completed ensemble also included the nearby Shahi Hammam baths, making the mosque the anchor of a larger complex designed to serve multiple purposes.

• 3. Tiles and Color

  ›

  The outer perimeter of Wazir Khan Mosque measures 279 feet by 159 feet. The mosque is built on an elevated plinth of bricks laid in kankar lime. Its long axis runs parallel to the Shahi Guzargah, the Royal Road, so the decorated face presents itself to the main road.

  Kashi-kari, the Punjabi tradition of intricate tile-mosaic, sheathes the exterior. Colors drawn from a Persian palette include lajvard, a deep cobalt blue; firozi, a cerulean; white, green, orange, yellow, and purple. No monument from the same era in Lahore matches it in scale.

  The facade of the entry portal facing Wazir Khan Chowk carries both tile work and calligraphy. Verses of the Quran appear there, alongside sayings of the Prophet Muhammad, prayers for the Prophet, and calligraphic insignias. The arched niche at the entrance contains one of Lahore's first examples of a muqarna. This architectural form has precedents at the Alhambra in Spain and at several imperial mosques in Iran.

  The low domes above the prayer hall reflect the style of the Lodi dynasty, which ruled Lahore before the Mughal era. The mosque's four minarets, each 107 feet tall, rise from the corners of the inner courtyard.

• 4. Threshold and Bazaar

  ›

  Entry into Wazir Khan Mosque passes beneath a large Timurid-style iwan, an arched vault flanked by two projecting balconies. Above the iwan, the Arabic Islamic declaration of faith is rendered in tilework. The panels flanking the iwan contain Persian quatrains by the calligraphist Muhammad Ali, a disciple of the Sufi saint Mian Mir.

  The right panel reads: "To all who turn towards the Qibla in prayer, may this door remain wide open with prosperity till the day of resurrection." The inscription on the left declares: "Tillers! Everything we sow in this world we will reap in the next. Lay a good foundation in this life, for everyone must pass through this gate to Paradise."

  A smaller portal beneath the iwan opens into an octagonal chamber. That chamber sits at the center of the first charsu bazaar, or four-axis market, introduced into South Asia from Central Asia. Two of the four axes form the Calligrapher's Bazaar, a row of shops traditionally reserved for calligraphers and bookbinders. The other two axes align in a straight line from the entry portal to the center of the prayer hall. Revenue from merchants in these and in the mosque's northern and eastern facades formed a waqf, an endowment for the building's maintenance.

  Beyond the octagonal chamber lies the central courtyard, approximately 160 feet by 130 feet. High arched galleries surround it, a feature typical of imperial Persian mosques. A square wudu pool measuring 35 feet by 35 feet occupies the center, used for ritual washing before prayer. Thirty-two khanas, or small study cloisters, line the courtyard for religious scholars. The mosque also contains the shrine of Saint Sakhi Saif Souf, maintained within the precinct.

• 5. Frescoes and the Dome

  ›

  Unlike the contemporary Shah Jahan Mosque in Sindh, the prayer hall at Wazir Khan Mosque is plastered and adorned with highly detailed buon frescoes. In buon fresco, pigment is worked directly into wet plaster, becoming part of the wall surface itself. This combination of imperial Mughal elements with local Punjabi decorative traditions is unique among mosques of the Mughal era. The hall runs approximately 130 feet long and 42 feet wide.

  At the hall's center, four arches form a square pavilion in the Persian architectural form known as a Char Taq. A dome 31 feet tall with a diameter of 23 feet rests on the pavilion. Its underside is painted with frescoes depicting trees in pairs, pitchers of wine, and platters of fruit. These images allude to the Islamic concept of Paradise.

  Haji Yousaf Kashmiri wrote verses from the Quran's surah al-Baqara above the iwan entrance to the main prayer hall. The remaining compartments are covered by domes 21 feet tall with a diameter of 19 feet. Each interior wall is divided into sections bearing unique mosaic designs, with calligraphy in both Arabic and Persian running across the surfaces.

  The prayer hall's five sections are arranged in a single long aisle running north to south. This layout mirrors the older Mosque of Mariyam Zamani Begum. The acoustic properties of the main dome allow the imam's sermon to carry outward across the courtyard.

• 6. Restoration and Renewal

  ›

  Fred Henry Andrews noted in 1903 that the mosque had fallen into disrepair. For most of the following century the building held formal protection. It was listed on the Protected Heritage Monuments of the Archaeology Department of Punjab. UNESCO added it to the tentative list for World Heritage Site status in 1993. Substantive restoration did not begin until 2004, when the Government of Punjab launched conservation work at the site.

  In 2007, the Aga Khan Trust for Culture became a partner. In 2009, the Trust began a two-year survey as part of a broader effort to restore the Walled City of Lahore. That survey fed into the Shahi Guzargah Project, launched in 2012 by the Government of Punjab and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture. The project restored the section of Shahi Guzargah between the mosque and Delhi Gate. It completed in 2015 with support from Norway and the United States.

  Wazir Khan Chowk had shrunk significantly before restoration began, as unauthorized construction closed in on its edges. Illegally constructed shops also encroached on the mosque from multiple directions, blocking views of the decorated facades. Tangled power lines ran along the approach, crossing lines of sight toward the kashi-kari tiling. The first restoration phase cleared those encroachments and placed the power lines underground. It also rehabilitated the Chitta Gate at the eastern entrance to the Chowk and restored the well of Dina Nath.

  In 2015, the Lahore University of Management Sciences and the United States Agency for International Development partnered to map the mosque in three dimensions. Restoration under the Aga Khan Trust for Culture continues at the site, backed by Germany, Norway, and the United States. Formal World Heritage designation from UNESCO remains pending.