Jama Masjid, Delhi

About

Rising on the highest ground of old Shahjahanabad, the mosque commands the surrounding city with its broad red sandstone and white marble facade, its three bulbous domes, and its twin minarets of striped sandstone and marble. The vast courtyard, reached by a sweep of steps from each of three sides, can hold tens of thousands of worshippers in congregational prayer.

Its older name, Masjid-i-Jehan-Numa, was the title given by the emperor Shah Jahan and is generally read as the mosque that reflects the whole world, an allusion to the legendary Jam-e-Jehan Numa, the mirror that showed all things. The everyday Urdu name, Jama Masjid, is shared with congregational mosques throughout the Muslim world, drawn from the Arabic for the gathering or Friday mosque.

The Red Fort lies just across the open ground from the mosque, with Chandni Chowk and the bazaars of the old city stretching westwards. The mausoleum of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, the Indian independence leader and scholar, stands beside the mosque, weaving its history together with that of modern India.

The Jama Masjid remains in daily use as a congregational mosque, with the five daily prayers and the Friday jumu'ah observed within its courts. It is a Monument of National Importance under the Archaeological Survey of India.

History

Shah Jahan commissioned the mosque as one of the closing monumental projects of his reign. Construction took place between 1650 and 1656, employing approximately five thousand workers. The works were supervised by the wazir Sadullah Khan and by Fazil Khan, at a recorded cost of ten lakh rupees.

On 23 July 1656 the mosque was opened by Syed Abdul Ghafoor Shah Bukhari, whom Shah Jahan had brought from Bukhara to serve as the first Shahi Imam. Until 1857, the Friday khutba was recited here in the name of the reigning Mughal sovereign, marking the mosque as a sign of imperial legitimacy.

Following the 1857 Revolt, the British seized the mosque and used parts of it as a barracks, returning it to the Muslim community in 1862 under conditions of strictly religious use. The Jama Masjid Managing Committee was established, and the imamate has continued in the Bukhari family across generations.

Significance

The Jama Masjid is among the most cherished places of worship for Muslims of India, a working congregational mosque whose Friday prayers gather thousands beneath its domes. As the imperial mosque of the Mughal capital, it stands as a witness to the long Islamic presence in Delhi, and as a place where the rhythm of daily salah continues at the heart of Old Delhi.