Lal Masjid, Delhi

Not to be confused with Lal Masjid, Islamabad.

Lal Masjid (lit. "Red Mosque") of Delhi, also known as the Fakr-ul Masjid (lit. "Pride of Mosques") or Sikandar Sahib's Masjid,^[1] is a mosque located in Bara Bazaar, Kashmiri Gate in Old Delhi, India.

Lal Masjid
Religion
Affiliation	Islam
Location
Location	Delhi
Country	India
Location in Delhi, India
Geographic coordinates	28.665186°N 77.229613°E / 28.665186; 77.229613
Architecture
Type	Mosque
Style	Indo-Islamic
Groundbreaking	1728
Completed	1729
Materials	Red sandstone, white marble

History

The building was built in 1728 by Kaniz-i-Fatima (entitled Fakr-i-Jahan), in memory of her husband Shujaat Khan, a noble in the court of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb.^[2] Colonel James Skinner repaired the mosque and its construction is sometimes misattributed to him.^[1][3]

Illustrations and descriptions of the mosque were included in Sir Thomas Metcalfe's 1844 book "Reminiscences of Imperial Delhi."

In the 1857 Siege of Delhi the mosque was damaged, yet since then, has been repaired.^[4]

Architecture

The mosque sits on a raised plinth of about 12 metres (40 ft) by 7.3 metres (24 ft) and stands 2.5 metres (8.2 ft) above the adjacent shop-lined streets.^[5][6] The main complex consists of three rooms each with its own arched entryway. Two striped towers on either side of the center arch are mirrored by the mosque's two minarets standing at the rear corners of building. Behind a decorated parapet on the roof of the mosque sit three white and black marble domes.^[6] The building's prominent use of red sandstone and white marble is considered unusual for the period, though many of its other features, including its minarets and domes, are closely modeled off of the major mosques of Delhi including the nearby Jama Masjid.^[7]

Illustration of Lal Masjid (left) from Sir Thomas Metcalfe's Delhi Book.

References

1. Smith, R,V (30 May 2015). Delhi: Unknown Tales of a City. Roli Books Private Limited. ISBN 9789351941255.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
2. Peck, Lucy (August 2005). Delhi, a thousand years of building. The Lotus Collection. ISBN 9788174363541.
3. Smith, Ronald Vivian (2005). The Delhi that No-one Knows. Orient Blackswan. ISBN 9788180280207.
4. Keene, Henry George (1906). A Handbook for Visitors to Delhi and Its Neighborhood. Bombay: Thacker & Co. pp. 25–26.
5. Stephen, Carr (1876). The Archæology and Monumental Remains of Delhi. Ludhiana: Thacker Spink & Co. pp. 270–271.
6. "Lal Masjid (Fakrul Masjid)". 6 July 2007. Archived from the original on 6 July 2007. Retrieved 30 September 2018.
7. Asher, Catherine B.; Talbot, Cynthia (2006). India before Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521809045. OCLC 61303480.