Thread by @TheMuslimsofIN

Have you noticed something about the two mosques I talked about? The Charminar and the Mecca Masjid. They're very different from the common perception of what a mosque is supposed to look like, aren't they? Lofty bulbous domes, minarets, crescents, maybe painted green and white?

...Yet these two mosques have no domes or tall towering minarets that symbolize a mosque. Let's look at a few other heritage mosques around #Hyderabad. Here are a few images of Qutb Shahi mosques around the city...

...Qutb Shahi mosques are all very recognizable in terms of their proportions and massing. To over-simplify, something of this sort...

One of my favorite QSmosques is the Toli Masjid. It has been declared a heritage structure by ASI. It was built by Musa Khan Mehezdar, chief contractor of Mecca Masjid. It’s also known as Damri Masjid because one damri (penny?) per rupee spent on Makkah Masjid was collected to...

...fund this mosque. What's really special is that this mosque has little lightweight bells made of stucco in its minarets, and it chimes when the wind blows through them! #MosquesofHyderabad #MosquesofIndia

...In this lesson, you can learn about the common elements found in the architecture of most mosques:
khanacademy.org/humanities/art…

...So when there was a very formulaic modularity and stylistic preference for almost all QS mosques, why are the Charminar and Mecca Masjid (the most famous and central ones) so different? Perhaps the formal design system had not yet been standardized at the time...

...when the Charminar was built. Of course, the Charminar is more than just a mosque, it's a monument at the central crossroads of Hyderabad, viewable from all sides. So it makes sense that it not have a front and back and be symmetrical along two axes aligned with the streets...

...But the Mecca Masjid was built much later, after a formal language of Qutb Shahi mosques had already begun to be developed. Why is it so different in terms of proportion? Why does it break from the design formula?

Blame the Mughals! If you observe carefully, Mecca Masjid departs from other QS mosques in that its minarets aren't tall but stunted&seem disproportionate to the rest of the structure.Muhammad Quli had set out to build the grandest mosque ever. But Aurangzeb disrupted his plan...

According to Hyderabadi historian Sajjad Shahid, who has extensive knowledge of the history, literature, culture and politics of Hyderabad and the Deccan, "The Kingdom was under constant attacks from the Mughals, as a result the construction was always getting stalled..."

"...The heavy indemnity that the Mughals demanded meant the treasuries were under duress,"

The construction was only completed 77 yrs later, after the Mughal army captured Golconda. Aurangazeb, being somewhat of an ascetic, didn't wish to spend any more money on the structure...

... and ordered that the construction be completed the way it was. Thus, the stunted minarets that don't follow the rules! This was not the last time the Mecca Masjid would be at the mercy of outside attackers. According to legend, anyone who sat on the stone takht (seats)...

...in the mosque courtyard would certainly return to Hyderabad! One of the legendary takht was destroyed during coordinated bomb blasts around the city by terrorists during Jum'ah prayers in 2007, which also killed 9 people mid-prayer and injured 50+.

...Many innocent Muslim youths were arrested by the police in connection to these blasts, but released much later when Tehelka did an exposé on this and similar terror activities around the country (many familiar topical names in this report!)
swap.stanford.edu/20110604132655…

Unfortunately, the case is still open due to retracted confessions by some of the accused and no other leads.
timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/mecca-ma…

The design of Mecca Masjid reminds me of a few small musalla (prayer spaces) around the city. This one "near" Golconda also has stunted minarets. Mulla Khayali Mosque by Mulla Khayali (most probably a pseudonym), a court poet and calligraphist.

...Fateh Masjid, #QutbShahiTombs was one of the very few #Mughal structures built in Hyderabad after the siege of #Golconda by #Aurangzeb who built this personal musalla for himself. It’s free of excessive ornamentation as he was a staunch ascetic & disliked displays of opulence.

So how exactly did Aurangzeb capture Golconda? It was the most impregnable fort in India with walls of heavy granite, not to mention the spiked doors! There was a secret network of underground tunnels below the fort that led to Charminar and connections to Secret Lake...

...(Durgam Cheruvu), a source of water supply. The Mughals were in want of the diamonds that lay within the fort. The siege of Golconda lasted 8 whole months, and on serveral occasions it exhausted the Mughal army to its limits, who tried everything from firing huge cannons...

...raising scaffolding against the fort walls and pummeling grenades inside to cutting off water supply. But strategy and brute force was not the way they could enter Golconda...

...It was through the treachery of Sarandaz Khan, a Qutb Shahi military official who secretly opened one of the doors of the fort and let the Mughal army inside.

...The intricate network of tunnels beneath the city that connected Golconda to Charminar and other key locations still lies undiscovered, though every few years there's exciting news/rumors of unearthing part of the secret tunnel! It's become somewhat of an urban legend now...

...The Mughals ruled Golconda for <40 years; the diamond trade was almost destroyed and Hyderabad began to decline. After Aurangzeb's death, the viceroy to the Deccan seceded from the Mughal Empire and was given the title of Nizam-ul-Mulk (governor of the country) and Asaf Jah...

...Under the Nizam, Hyderabad was the largest and richest princely state, and even during the British Raj, was autonomous and not under control of the British. The Asaf Jahi dynasty ruled Hyderabad until a year after India's independence, when Hyderabad was annexed by India.