CAPTURING DELHI IN PIXEL - JAMA MASJID
CAPTURING DELHI IN PIXEL - JAMA MASJID Following the death of his wife, Mughal emperor Shah Jahan decided to shift his capital from Agra to Delhi and founded the walled city of Shahajahanabad. It remained the capital of the Mughals succeeding him and evolved to what we now know as Old Delhi. The Jama Masjid was commissioned to be the central mosque of the new city. Built by more than 5000 artisans under the supervision of Wazir Saadullah Khan, the mosque designed by architect Ustad Khalil, took 6 years to be completed. The mosque was inaugurated by Sayed Abdul Ghafoor Shah BukhariI, a mullah from Bukhara (now Uzbekistan), on 23 July 1656, on the invitation from Shah Jahan, whom he bequeathed the title Shahi Imam and appointed to the high office of Imamat-e-Uzma. The cost to build the mosque came to a whopping 1 million rupees at the time.The mosque houses several relics of Islamic religious significance like an age old transcript of the Quran printed on deer skin, the footma...