The Wazir Khan Mosque (Punjabi: وزیر خاں مسیت, romanized: Wazīr Khã Masīt; Persian, Urdu: مسجد وزیر خان, romanized: Masjid Wazīr Khān) is a 17th-century Mughal masjid located in the city of Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. The mosque was commissioned during the reign of the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan as a part of an ensemble of buildings that also included the nearby Shahi Hammam baths. Construction of Wazir Khan Mosque began in 1634 C.E., and was completed in 1641. It is on the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List.
Considered to be the most ornately decorated Mughal-era mosque, Wazir Khan Mosque is renowned for its intricate faience tile work known as kashi-kari, as well as its interior surfaces that are almost entirely embellished with elaborate Mughal-era frescoes. The mosque has been under extensive restoration since 2009 under the direction of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture and the Government of Punjab,with contributions from the governments of Germany, Norway, and the United States.
Location
The mosque is located in the Walled City of Lahore along the southern side of Lahore’s Shahi Guzargah, or “Royal Road,” which was the traditional route traversed by Mughal nobles on their way to royal residences at the Lahore Fort. The mosque is situated approximately 260 meters west of the Delhi Gate, where the masjid’s Shahi Hammam is located. The Masjid also faces a town square known as Wazir Khan Chowk, and the Chitta Gate. The mosque hosts the shrine of Saint Sakhi Saif Souf.
Background
See also: Mughal Empire
The mosque was commissioned by the chief physician to the Mughal Court, Hakeem Ilam-ud-din Ansari, better known by his royal title of Wazir Khan. Wazir Khan later became the subahdar, or Viceroy of Punjab, and commissioned several monuments in Lahore.Wazir Khan owned substantial amounts of property near the Delhi Gate, and commissioned the Wazir Khan mosque in 1634 in order to enclose the tomb of Miran Badshah, an esteemed Sufi saint whose tomb now lies in the courtyard of the mosque. Prior to the construction of the Wazir Khan Mosque, the site had been occupied by an older shrine to the saint.
The mosque’s interior was richly embellished with frescoes that synthesize Mughal and local decorative traditions, while the exterior of the mosque was lavishly decorated with intricate Persian-style kashi-kari tile work. Wazir Khan’s mosque superseded the older Maryam Zamani Mosque as the Lahore main mosque for congregational Friday prayers.
Wazir Khan’s mosque was part of a larger complex that included a row of shops traditionally reserved for calligraphers and bookbinders, and the town square in front of the mosque’s main entrance. The mosque also rented space to other types of merchants in the mosque’s northern and eastern façades, and ran the nearby Shahi Hammam. Revenues from these sources were meant to serve as a waqf, or endowment, for the mosque’s maintenance.
Main Construction of the mosque began under the reign of Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in either 1634 or 1635, and was completed in approximately seven years. In the late 1880s, John Lockwood Kipling, father of Rudyard Kipling, wrote about the mosque and its decorative elements in the former Journal of Indian Art. The British scholar Fred Henry Andrews noted in 1903 that the mosque had fallen into disrepair.