From Marrakesh to India: A Colonial Maharaja’s Pursuit of Architectural Glory in Kapurthala

This article explores a case of feisty internationalism in India's Islamic architecture during the colonial era. An Indian ruler with a passion for building, Maharaja Jagatjit Singh (1872-1949), ruler of the princely state of Kapurthala, commissioned a mosque in his capital, Kapurthala, in the early decades of the twentieth century. Departing from convention, the archetype was not drawn from the subcontinent's mosque-building tradition, but from Morocco in the Maghrib (Muslim North Africa). The patron was an inveterate traveller and tourist who frequented Europe and also visited its colonies including Morocco. He was impressed by Marrakesh's landmark twelfth-century Kutubiyya Mosque that became the prototype for Kapurthala's Jami Mosque. Designed by a French architect, Kapurthala's Jami Mosque is a complete aberration in the subcontinent's Islamic history owing to its allegiance to a Maghribi prototype. It represents a unique, idiosyncratic endeavour by a non-Muslim ruler subscribing to western cultural practices and seeking inspiration beyond the scope of his home in order to raise a mosque for his Muslim subjects. The article asserts that the Maharaja's endeavour, sadly neglected both by the public and academia, deserves a place in the subcontinent's vast corpus of Islamic built heritage as an invaluable cultural resource to be safeguarded for posterity.

Sharma, Jyoti Pandey. "From Marrakesh to India: A Colonial Maharaja’s Pursuit of Architectural Glory in Kapurthala." In International Journal of Islamic Architecture, Volume 1, Number 2 (pp. 269-300), edited by Mohammad Gharipour, Bristol: Intellect, 2012.

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