Gujarat: 400-year-old mosque shows up as cobwebs of encroachments clear

After a civic body team razed a series of shops selling wedding paraphernalia at Raipur Chakla, a four-century-old mosque – hitherto divorced from the city’s culture because of illicit buildings – rose into 

After a civic body team razed a series of shops selling wedding paraphernalia at Raipur Chakla, a four-century-old mosque – hitherto divorced from the city’s culture because of illicit buildings – rose into view in the mist of debris.

The Bai Jitbai ni Masjid rediscovered on November 16 in the Walled City which has won the coveted Unesco’s ‘World Heritage City’ tag is a monument from the sultanate era. Its significance stands on a solidly multicultural foundation: it is one of the four mosques commissioned in the city by Hindu queens and noblewomen of Ahmedabad.

Local residents do not recall when the mosque was last visited to offer prayers. The civic body though found the mosque well preserved, given its age and the assaults of reckless constructions. The two minarets have taken a beating though: one has disappeared and the other survives only as a stub.

A brick boundary around the mosque – thought to have been raised decades ago – seems to have given it a measure of protection.

Though the hall of the mosque and the ablution tank are intact, the open plot adjoining the mosque, which was an extended portion of the courtyard, was heavily encroached.