| Shahi Jama Masjid Sambhal | |
| Religious Affiliation: | Islam |
| Location: | Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh, India |
| Geo: | 28.5807°N 78.5671°W |
| Status: | Active |
| Architecture Type: | Mosque |
| Established: | c. 1526 |
Shahi Jama Masjid (Urdu:) is the oldest surviving Mughal-era mosque in South Asia. Located in Sambhal, Uttar Pradesh, it was established during the reign of Babur in December, 1526. The mosque is a protected monument under the Ancient Monuments Protection Act, 1904.[1]
A gate-complex on the east opens to a square-shaped courtyard with a well and an ablution tank.[2] [3] The courtyard leads to the rectangular prayer chamber with a square-shaped central bay; a dome, supported on an octagonal squinch, enclose the top of the bay. On either side of the chamber, there exists a three-bayed double-aisled arcade, accessible by doorways.
Scholars have noted a high degree of similarity with the Sharqi architecture of Jaunpur, especially in the usage of stone-masonry—covered in plaster—as the chief building material and the use of iwans; Catherine Asher suggests a reliance on local artisans. John Burton-Page, a scholar of Indian architecture, notes the mosque to be imposing but "utterly undistinguished" in architectural novelty.[4]
According to an extant inscription on the mihrab, on 6 December 1526, Emperor Babur commanded Mir Hindu Beg, the regional Governor, to construct the mosque. Both Ram Nath and Catherine Asher, scholars of Mughal architecture, doubt that Babur had any personal involvement; while Asher suggests that the inscription might have merely alluded to Babur's permission to regional governors to construct mosques in newly gained territories, Nath believes that Beg refurbished an old Lodi-era mosque.
Adjacent inscriptions attest to repairs undertaken in 1625–26 and 1656–57; in the former, the mosque was referred to as an "old mosque".[5]
In 1874, A. C. L. Carlleyle, Assistant to the Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India, touring the district as part of an archaeological survey, found the bricks used in the central bay to have been stripped of their stone casings, before being plastered over, and the courtyard pathway stones to contain fragments of Hindu sculptures underneath; additionally, the bricks used for the central bay were larger than those used for the side-bays. Thus, Carlleyle proposed that the central bay was indeed a Hindu temple that was converted into a mosque—wherein the stone casings with sculptures were stripped and repurposed as footsteps out of aniconic impulses—and followed up with the addition of side bays.
Howard Crane, a scholar of Islamic art and architecture, found such a hypothesis to be implausible and denied that the site of mosque could have been ever occupied by a temple. In contrast, Ram Nath, a scholar of Mughal architecture, agrees that a temple was converted into the mosque and notes pillars of the temple to have been reused; he believes the mosque to have been constructed during the Lodi era.[6] [7] Likewise, Stephen Dale, a scholar of South Asian Islam and academic biographer of Babur, notes that the mosque was constructed on a site which was sacred to the Hindus and used temple spolia; however, he cautions that the act was unlikely to have a religious motivation, given no evidence exists to suggest that Babur was undertaking a religious crusade in India.[8]
Abul Fazl, a court-historian of Akbar writing in the late 1500s, noted Sambhal to have a famed temple, called the Hara Mandal (trans. Temple for Shiva);[9] he also noted of a millenarian belief among Hindus about Kalki, the final incarnation of Vishnu, appearing among the descendants of the priests of the temple.[10] Fazl did not mention the mosque but having never been to Sambhal, he was, likely, reproducing from old non-extant chronicles.
Ānand Rām Mukhliṣ, a Mughal scribe who toured Sambhal in 1745, noted Babur's son, Humayun, to have ordered the conversion of what was once a domed temple, the Hara Mandal, into the mosque upon receiving the jagir of the district; Mukhlis came across Babur's foundational inscription and chronicled it. However, he did not take umbrage at the conversion, remarking that what was a place of worship continued to be one.[11] Mukhlis further described an adjacent water tank that continued to attract Hindu pilgrims and was frequented by Brahmin priests and flower-sellers.
35 years later, Aḥmad ʿAlī, a scribe under the employment of East India Company, toured Sambhal and reproduced a similar account.[12] In 1789, Thomas Daniell and William Daniell etched two drawings of the mosque while travelling through Sambhal; Thomas noted the mosque to be "on the site of a Hindoo temple."[13]
In 1873, Ganga Prashad, Deputy Collector of the district, noted Babur to have converted a Hari Mandir to the mosque; the mosque still had a chain for the suspension of a bell and pilgrims engaged in parikrama around the mosque.[14] Around the same time, Carlleyle alleged local Muslims to have confessed to him about the extant inscriptions being forgeries and about how they had usurped total control of the site only around 1850.[15]
In 1878, local Hindus filed a plea in the Moradabad Civil Court asking for the site to be returned to them; they lost the case having failed to prove that the Muslims did not have continuous possession of the site for the last twelve years.[16] Additionally, the parikrama path did not go through the mosque and witness for the Hindu side were noted to be of a "poor quality" who had never seen the inside of the mosque.
In 1920, the mosque was brought under the purview of the Ancient Monuments Protection Act, 1904, and designated as a protected monument.
On 29 March 1978, there was a riot in Sambhal after rumors spread about how local Hindus had murdered the Imam of the mosque.[17] [18]
See main article: article and 2024 Sambhal Violence. On 19 November 2024, Vishnu Shankar Jain, known for his involvement in the Gyanvapi Dispute, filed a petition in the Chandausi Civil Court arguing the mosque to have been built over a Shri Hari Har Temple and asked for an immediate survey of the site.[19] [20] The prayer was granted ex parte and the survey was completed by evening.
On 24 November, there was an attempt at a fresh survey which gave rise to apprehensions of the surveyors excavating the mosque; stone-pelting and arson followed, resulting in four deaths, likely from retaliatory police firing. A week later, the Supreme Court of India directed the Civil Court to pause all proceedings until the Allahabad High Court heard the Mosque Committee's challenge to the survey order; the Court ordered the survey report to not be unsealed and emphasized upon the responsibility of the government to maintain peace.[21] [22]
Local Hindus claim that they have always held the mosque to be Harihar Mandir and that they used to offer prayers at a nearby well till a few decades ago; local Muslims do not oppose the Hindu claims but assert that such a temple existed in the mosque’s vicinity in ancient times, and not at the site itself.