| Historic monuments of Bahadurgarh |
|
|
|
| Written by Subhash Parihar, The Tribune India | |||||||
| Saturday, 18 November 2000 | |||||||
Page 4 of 5 A decade after founding Saifabad, Saif Khan built a mosque for its inhabitants in it. The six line Persian inscription over the facade, in English translation, reads: The last line of the inscription forms a chronogram yielding the date 1077 hijri, i.e., 1666-67 AD, which is given in numerals also. At this time, Saif Khan was serving as the governor of Multan. The inscription must have been written before the last quarter of the year when he was sent with Prince Azam to the Deccan. The mosque is one of the finest specimens of its type in the region. The access to the sanctuary is through three cusped archways, opening into a nave, which is flanked by an aisle. The nave and each aisle has a mihrab, the arch-shaped niche toward which prayer is directed. The exterior of each interior division is defined by a dome. Each dome has a double shell and is crowned by an inverted lotus mould. Just below the parapet, the facade is shaded with a chhajja which gets curved over the entrance, in consonance with the three arches below. In the courtyard of the mosque there is a tank. The water to this tank was supplied from a well adjoining the eastern wall of the enclosure. |
|||||||
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|