This mosque in Lahore was built by a royal physician, and it is often described as the most ornate of the Mughal era.
This is the Wazir Khan Mosque, in the walled city of Lahore, Pakistan.
Wazir Khan, whose name was Hakim Ilm-ud-Din Ansari, was a physician who became governor of the Punjab under Emperor Shah Jahan. Construction began in 1634 or 1635 and was completed in 1641.
The mosque was built beside the tomb of a Sufi saint, Miran Badshah, on the site of an older shrine, and it became Lahore’s main Friday mosque.
It is built of brick with lime mortar, and its walls are covered in tile mosaic and painted frescoes that blend Mughal and Punjabi traditions. The architect is unknown, but craftsmen from Chiniot were employed.
Four octagonal minarets, each about 33 metres high, stand at the corners of the courtyard. Around the courtyard run galleries and thirty-two small rooms where students once studied.
In 2004, restoration began, and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture has worked with the Government of Punjab on conservation since 2009. It has been on Pakistan’s tentative list for UNESCO World Heritage since 1993.
The Wazir Khan Mosque is a 17th-century Mughal mosque located in the city of Lahore, Punjab, Pakistan. The mosque was commissioned by the then governor of Lahore, Wazir Khan, during the reign of the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan as a part of an ensemble of buildings that also included the nearby Wazir Khan Hammam baths. Construction of the mosque began in 1634, and was completed in 1641.
Considered to be the most ornately decorated Mughal-era mosque, Wazir Khan Mosque is noted for its intricate faience tile-work known as kashi-kari, as well as its interior surfaces that are almost entirely embellished with elaborate frescoes. It is on the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List.
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