From the Red Fort we again took a cycle rickshaw into the narrow pathways of Old Delhi for a visit to Jama Masjid. Built on a hillock in Shahjanabad beginning in 1650 at the behest of Shah Jahan, Jama Masjid is India’s largest mosque. It took 5,000 laborers six years to complete.
The royal entrance to the mosque is up a set of 35 steps to a red sandstone gate that leads to a colonnaded courtyard with an ablution tank in the center.
Inside of Main Entrance to Jama Masjid and Courtyard
The covered prayer hall is topped by three onion-shaped domes of white marble with black stripes. Each of the two corner minarets reaches a height of 130 feet.
Jama Masjid, DelhiThe 260 pillars in the main prayer hall support a series of cusped arches and 15 marble domes.
Cusped Archways of Main Prayer Hall
Typical of a Muslim house of worship, there is little ornamentation aside from the relatively simple geometric stucco carvings on the underside of the archways and a few cusped niches in the Mihrab.
Mihrab in Jama Masjid
To enter a mosque, you must remove your shoes and be conservatively dressed. I’m not sure why my guide had me put on this robe as
I'm reaching for my hat which was being blown away
there were other women in the mosque in pants with long-sleeved shirts.