Jami Masjid, Hyderabad

The Jami Masjid (“congregational mosque”) of Hyderabad stands close to the Charminar.¹² A narrow lane leads to it from the main road.¹² The Golconda chronicle translated by John Briggs names it among the first works of Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah in his new city.³ It calls it an “elegant musjid” (mosque), built together with the Charminar.³

G. Yazdani surveyed the Qutb Shahi buildings of the city in 1918–19.⁴ He wrote that Firishta refers to the mosque together with the Charminar.⁴ He added: “According to an inscription fixed over the doorway of the mosque it was built by Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah”.⁴

Date

The verse inscription over the door gives the year by a chronogram, in which the number values of letters add up to the year.⁵⁶⁷⁸ Yazdani and Syed Ali Asgar Bilgrami both read it as AH 1006 (AH is the Islamic way of counting years), that is 1597.⁵⁶⁷⁸ The inscription in the prayer niche gives the same year.⁵⁶⁷⁸

The Imperial Gazetteer of 1909 dates the mosque to 1596.⁹ A. Claude Campbell (1898) and Sha Rocco (1929) date it to 1598.¹¹⁰ The text of the inscriptions, and the differences between their editors, are given on the page of the Jami Masjid inscription.

In his edition of the inscriptions, Yazdani says that the door inscription leaves out the name of the king.⁵ It names the minister who supervised the work, Malik Aminu-l-Mulk.⁵⁶ Yazdani says he held the office of Mir Jumla (chief minister) before Mir Muhammad Amin of Astarabad.⁵ In the middle of Muhammad Quli’s reign he “distinguished himself in quelling the rebellions of petty Hindu Rajas”.⁵

Bilgrami calls him “his Vazier and Mir Jumla, Malik Aminul Mulk, Alaf Khan Bahadur whose Amin Bagh is still famous”.⁸ He says Aminu-l-Mulk is buried at Patancheru.⁸

The building

Yazdani described the plan:⁵¹¹

• a double hall, 72 ft 6 in by 32 ft 6 in, opening by seven arches onto a paved courtyard⁵¹¹
• the courtyard, 74 by 70 feet, with a cistern at its north-eastern end⁵¹¹
• two lofty minarets at the north-east and south-east corners of the hall⁵¹¹
• a colonnade of nine openings in the pillar-and-lintel style, along the north side of the court⁵¹¹

He found the interior “still imposing”.⁴¹¹ But he regretted that “a thick growth of houses and shops envelopes the exterior”.⁴¹¹ These spoiled the mosque’s original setting beside the Charminar square, the Char Kaman and the royal palaces.⁴¹¹

Campbell was less impressed.¹ He wrote that the mosque, “which is of moderate size, has no pretension to architectural merit”.¹ He called it “the oldest musjid in Hyderabad”.¹ He noted in its courtyard “the ruins of an old Turkish bath”, which the gazetteer also mentions.¹⁹

Bilgrami calls it “one of the earliest of the Deccan mosques next to the famous Bahmani mosque of Gulburga”.⁸ He says it was built “at a cost of Rs. 2 Lacs”.⁸ “A school, a monastry and a bath” were attached to it, and all of them were ruined by his day.⁸¹²

Under Asaf Jah III the mosque was extensively repaired.¹² Mir Abbas Ali Khan, who died in AH 1230, fixed wooden railings in it.¹² Later the scholar Hafiz Mir Shujauddin taught Arabic in it.¹² Bilgrami credits him with spreading the custom of learning the Quran by heart in the city.¹²

The calligraphy

Yazdani called the door inscription, written by Baba Khan, “the finest example of the Nasta’liq script in the Deccan”.¹³⁶ He noted that the prayer-niche inscription of the same year was copied, seventy-one years later, in the great mosque at the Qutb Shahi Tombs.¹³⁶ Bilgrami published photographic rubbings of both.²⁷

Where the sources disagree

Yazdani describes the door inscription in two ways.⁴⁵ In the Archaeological Department’s report for 1918–19, he wrote that according to it the mosque “was built by Muhammad Quli Qutb Shah”.⁴ In his edition of the inscription in Epigraphia Indo-Moslemica, he says that “the name of the king is omitted in the inscription”.⁵ There it names only the minister, Malik Aminu-l-Mulk.⁵⁶

Footnotes

1. A. Claude Campbell, Glimpses of the Nizam’s Dominions (1898), p. 168 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

2. Syed Ali Asgar Bilgrami, Landmarks of the Deccan (1927), p. 26 and plate (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³

3. Golconda chronicle, in Muhammad Qasim Ferishta, tr. John Briggs, History of the Rise of the Mahomedan Power in India, Vol. III (1829), p. 452 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

4. Annual Report of the Archaeological Department of H.E.H. the Nizam’s Dominions, 1328 F. (1918–19) (1920), p. 4 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

5. Yazdani, Epigraphia Indo-Moslemica 1917–18 (1921), p. 44 and notes (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³ ↩¹⁴ ↩¹⁵

6. Yazdani, Epigraphia Indo-Moslemica 1917–18 (1921), p. 45 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷

7. Bilgrami, Landmarks of the Deccan (1927), p. 27 and plate (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴

8. Bilgrami, Landmarks of the Deccan (1927), p. 28 and notes (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

9. Imperial Gazetteer of India: Hyderabad State (1909), p. 116 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²

10. Sha Rocco, Golconda and the Qutb Shahs (1929), p. 14 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩

11. Annual Report of the Archaeological Department, 1918–19 (1920), p. 5 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸

12. Bilgrami, Landmarks of the Deccan (1927), p. 29 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵

13. G. Yazdani, “Inscriptions of the Qutb Shahi Kings in Hyderabad City and Suburbs”, Epigraphia Indo-Moslemica 1917–18 (1921), p. 43 (archive.org↗ (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩²