Wazir Khan Mosque

The Wazir Khan Mosque (Punjabi and Urdu: مسجد وزیر خان ‎; Persian: مسجد وزیر خان‎; Masjid Wazīr Khān) is a seventeenth century mosque situated in the city of Lahore, capital of the Pakistani territory of Punjab. The mosque was dispatched during the rule of the Mughal Head Shah Jahan as a piece of a group of structures that likewise incorporated the close by Shahi Hammam showers. Development of Wazir Khan Mosque started in 1634 C.E., and was finished in 1641.[1] It is on the UNESCO World Legacy Provisional List.[2] 

Viewed as the most lavishly improved Mughal-period mosque,[3] Wazir Khan Mosque is eminent for its mind boggling faience tile work known as kashi-kari, just as its inside surfaces that are primarily decorated with intricate Mughal-time frescoes. The mosque has been under broad rebuilding since 2009 under the course of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture and the Public authority of Punjab,[4] with commitments from the legislatures of Germany, Norway, and the Unified States.[5]The mosque is situated in the Walled City of Lahore along the southern side of Lahore's Shahi Guzargah, or "Regal Street," which was the customary course crossed by Mughal aristocrats en route to regal homes at the Lahore Fort.[6] The mosque is arranged roughly 260 meters west of the Delhi Door, where the mosque's Shahi Hammam is located.[6] The mosque additionally faces a town square known as Wazir Khan Chowk, and the Chitta Entryway. 

Foundation 

The mosque was dispatched by the central doctor to the Mughal Court, Hakeem Ilam-ud-racket Ansari, who was broadly known as Wazir Khan.[7][8][9] Wazir Khan later turned into the subahdar, or Emissary of Punjab,[7] and charged a few landmarks in Lahore.[7] Wazir Khan possessed considerable measures of property close to the Delhi Door, and appointed the Wazir Khan mosque in 1634 to encase the burial chamber of Miran Badshah,[10] a regarded Sufi holy person whose burial chamber currently lies in the patio of the mosque.[7] Preceding the development of the Wazir Khan Mosque, the site had been involved by a more seasoned sanctum to the saint.[11] 

The mosque's inside was luxuriously adorned with frescoes that incorporate Mughal and nearby Punjabi enriching customs, while the outside of the mosque was extravagantly improved with perplexing Persian-style kashi-kari tile work.[12] Wazir Khan's mosque supplanted the more seasoned Maryam Zamani Mosque as the Lahore fundamental mosque for congregational Friday prayers.[13] 

Wazir Khan's mosque was essential for a bigger complex that incorporated a line of shops customarily saved for calligraphers and bookbinders, and the town square before the mosque's principle entrance.[14] The mosque likewise leased space to different kinds of shippers in the mosque's northern and eastern façades, and ran the close by Shahi Hammam.[14][15] Incomes from these sources were intended to fill in as a waqf, or blessing, for the mosque's maintenance.[16] 

History 

Development of the mosque started under the reign of Mughal Ruler Shah Jahan in either 1634 or 1635, and was finished in around seven years. In the last part of the 1880s, John Lockwood Kipling, father of Rudyard Kipling, expounded on the mosque and its enlivening components in the previous Diary of Indian Art.[17][18] The English researcher Fred Henry Andrews noted in 1903 that the mosque had fallen into disrepair.[19]The mosque is based on a raised plinth, with the fundamental entryway opening onto the Wazir Khan Chowk. The external border of the Wazir Khan Mosque estimates 279 feet (85 m) by 159 feet (48 m), with the long hub corresponding to the Shahi Guzargah.[20] It was worked with blocks laid in kankar lime.[20] 

Enhancing components 

Wazir Khan mosque is famous for its intricate adornment in a style which draws from the embellishing customs from a few districts. While different landmarks in Lahore from the Shah Jahan time frame include perplexing kashi-kari tile work, none match the huge size of the Wazir Khan Mosque.[21] 

Construction 

Blocks confronting the mosque's outside are luxuriously adorned with the Persian-style title work known as kashi-kari.[10] Façades confronting the internal patio are lavishly adorned with themes and range which show solid impacts from seventeenth century Persia.[citation needed] Persian-style tones utilized incorporate lajvard (cobalt blue), firozi (cerulean), white, green, orange, yellow and purple,[22] while Persian-affected themes incorporate star-formed blossoms and grapevines.[citation needed] The mosque likewise contains themes of cypress trees, and is the principal Mughal landmark to have acquired this theme from Persia.[citation needed]The façade of the passage entry confronting Wazir Khan Chowk is beautified with intricate tile work and calligraphy that incorporates refrains of the Quran,the expressions of the Prophet Muhammad, petitions for the Prophet, and calligraphic insignias.[19] Over the iwan access to the principle supplication lobby are stanzas from the Quran's surah Al-Baqara composed by the calligraphist Haji Yousaf Kashmiri.[19] 

Frescoes 

In contrast to the contemporary Shah Jahan Mosque in Sindh, the inside dividers of Wazir Khan Mosque are put and embellished with exceptionally itemized buon frescoes[10] The inside improving style is novel for Mughal-period mosques,[13] as it joins magnificent Mughal components with nearby Punjabi beautiful styles.[12] The principle supplication lobby contains a square structure over which the mosque's biggest vault rests - a Persian structure known as Singe Taq.[23] The underside of the arch element frescoes portraying trees two by two, pitchers of wine, and platters of organic product, which are an inference to the Islamic idea of Paradise.[19]The curved specialty at the mosque's passage confronting Wazir Khan Chowk is lavishly enhanced with flower themes, and elements one of Lahore's first instances of a muqarna - a compositional component found at the Alhambra in Spain, just as on a few majestic mosques in Iran.[13][24] The low vaults over the petition corridor mirror the style of the previous Lodi dynasty,[25] which controlled Lahore preceding the Mughal era.[26]Entry into Wazir Khan Mosque is through a huge Timurid-style Iwan over a more modest entrance which faces the Wazir Khan Chowk. The iwan is flanked by two projecting galleries. Over the iwan is the Arabic Islamic statement of confidence written in unpredictable tilework. The boards flanking the iwan contain Persian quatrains composed by the calligraphist Muhammad Ali, who was a follower of the Sufi holy person Mian Mir.[19] The board on the right of the iwan peruses: 

To all who turn towards the Qibla in supplication, may this entryway stay totally open with flourishing till the day of restoration. 

While the board to one side of the iwan peruses: 

Turners! All that we sow in this world we will procure in the following. Establish a decent framework in this life, for everybody should go through this door to Heaven. 

Passage through the little gateway leads into a covered octagonal chamber which lies in the focal point of the mosque's "Calligrapher's Bazaar."[7] The octagonal chamber lies in the focal point of what is the primary illustration of the Focal Asian charsu market idea, or four-hub marketplace, to be brought into South Asia.[27] Two of the four tomahawks are adjusted as the Calligrapher's Market, while the other two adjust in an orderly fashion from the mosque's entrance entryway, to the focal point of the fundamental supplication hall.[27]Passage through the entry and octagonal chamber leads into the mosque's focal patio. The yard estimates around 160 feet by 130 feet, and provisions high curved displays encompassing a focal block cleared patio - a run of the mill element of royal Persian mosques in Iran.[7] 

The mosque's patio contains a pool utilized for the Islamic ceremony washing, wudu that actions 35 feet by 35 feet. The yard includes an underground sepulcher which contains the burial chamber of the fourteenth century Sufi holy person Syed Muhammad Ishaq Gazruni, additionally known by the name Miran Badshah.[28] 

The yard is flanked on four sides by 32 khanas, or little review houses for strict scholars.[20] The mosque's four 107 foot tall minarets are situated in each side of the courtyard.[7]The mosque's petition corridor lies at the westernmost piece of the site, and is around 130 feet in length and 42 feet wide.[29] It is partitioned into five areas adjusted into a solitary long walkway running north to south, like the supplication lobby at the more seasoned Mosque of Mariyam Zamani Begum.[7] 

The focal part of the supplication lobby is topped by a 31 foot tall vault with a distance across of 23 feet settling upon four curves that structure a square structure - a Persian compositional structure known as a Burn Taq.[30] The excess compartment in the petition corridor are topped by a 21 foot tall arch with a measurement of 19 feet,[20] worked in a style like that of the previous Lodi dynasty.[26] The northernmost and southernmost compartments additionally contain little cells which house winding flights of stairs that lead to the rooftop.[20] 

The fundamental supplication lobby opens to a bathing pool. 

Dividers of the petition corridor's inside are additionally enhanced with calligraphy in both Arabic and Persian.[24] 

Each divider is separated further, and contain remarkable mosaic designs.[26] The acoustic properties of the vault consider the imam's message to be projected across the mosque's courtyard.The mosque complex is recorded on the Secured Legacy Landmarks of the Paleontology Branch of Punjab.[31] In 1993 the site was added to UNESCO's speculative rundown for world legacy site status.[32] In 2004, the Public authority of Punjab set out on protections and rebuilding endeavors for the mosque.[33] In 2007, the Aga Khan Trust for Culture collaborated with the Public authority of Punjab to reestablish the landmark, and in 2009 started a two drawn out top to bottom review of the mosque as a component of a bigger work to reestablish the Walled City of Lahore.[34] In 2015, the site was planned in 3D through an association between the Lahore College of The executives Sciences and the US Organization for Worldwide Development.[35] 

Reclamation 

Reclamation works at Wazir Khan Mo