The mosque of Ahmad Shah, located along the south wall of the citadel, is the earliest dated mosque in Ahmadabad. It was once used as the sultan's private place of worship, and as the jami masjid. The sanctuary facade is plain, with five arches. The larger central arch is flanked by two buttresses that rise from the ground to the roof. There seem to have been slender turrets atop the towers, which were taken down or fell down in the 1819 earthquake. It is unknown if these towers were ever used for the call to prayer but it seems unlikely that these were actual minarets, as the internal staircases lead all the way to the roof. These are the earliest examples in Gujarat of gateway turrets brought down to the ground.
The interior of the mosque has ten large domes, divided into two rows, with smaller domes in between supported by one hundred fifty two pillars, many taken from Hindu temples. There are eight perforated stone windows that let light into the interior. There are five mihrabs, one for each span and all of black and white marble, with a sixth in the royal gallery. In the northwest corner twenty-five pillars surrounded by perforated stone screens form a zanana, a feature of early royals mosques in Gujarat. The entrance porch leading to the enclosure may be a remnant of an earlier temple on the site.
Sources:
Alfieri, Bianca Maria, and F. Borromeo. Islamic architecture of the Indian subcontinent, 110-111. London, WC: Laurence King Pub., 2000.
Merklinger, Elizabeth Schotten. Sultanate architecture of pre-Mughal India, 71. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 2005.
Michell, George, and Philip Davies. The Penguin guide to the monuments of India. Vol. 2, 341. London, England: Viking, 1989.
