This tiny mosque in Bhopal is often called the smallest mosque in the world.
It is the Dhai Seedi Ki Masjid, which means the Mosque of Two and a Half Steps. It stands on a bastion of the old Fatehgarh fort, beside the tomb of Dost Mohammad Khan, the founder of modern Bhopal. The fort was started in the early eighteenth century.
A board put up by the state archaeology department calls it the first mosque of Bhopal State, and says it was reportedly built so the soldiers guarding the fort could pray.
The name comes from the two and a half steps that led up to the prayer hall. The long staircase there today is a recent one.
Lonely Planet writer Daniel McCrohan paced the floor and estimated the inside at sixteen square metres.
That is smaller than a twenty-five square metre mosque built in 2002 in Naberezhnye Chelny, in Russia, which writers have also called the smallest. In Hyderabad, a hilltop mosque of about ten square metres is smaller still, but sources disagree on whether prayers are held there.
As far as we could find, no official body keeps a record of the smallest mosque, so the title is a claim, not a record.
