Muhammad Ghawth Gwaliyari Masjid
Ahmedabad, India
The Mosque of Muhammad Ghawth Sahib (Muhammad Ghaus Gwaliyari) is a sixtheeth/tenth century AH in the Sarangpur neighborhood on the eastern end of the old walled city of Ahmedabad. It is also known locally as Ektoda Masjid (One-Minaret Mosque) because of its one tall minaret on the northern end of its facade.

Muhammad Ghawth's Mosque is a rectangular structure with the main entrance on its east side where it adjoins an open platform. At the center of the east facade is a triple archway that was originally framed by a large pishtaq (propylon). The pishtaq was dismantled in the 1880s. On either side of this triple-archway are two more entries for a total of seven arched entryways on the eastern facade. On the northern end of this facade is a tall minaret in the form of an engaged pillar octagonal in section and capped with a conical roof. The shaft of the minaret is segmented with five cornices. On the southern end, an octagonal buttress mirrors the based of the northern minaret. It was never completed and only rises to the level of the roof. The presence of the pishtaq distinguishes this mosque from others built in Ahmedabad in the fifteenth and sixteenth/ninth and tenth centuries AH.

The interior of the mosque is a large prayer hall. Two rows of eight columns down the center of the hall divide the space into three aisles, seven bays long, parallel to the qibla (west) wall. Three mihrabs aligned with the second, fourth, and sixth bays of these aisles mark the direction of prayer on the qibla wall.

Sources:

Burgess, James. The Muhammadan Architecture of Ahmadabad. Part II, 48-50. Archaeological Survey of Western India, Vol. 8. London: W. Griggs and Sons, 1905. 

Michell, George, and Snehal Shah, eds. Ahmadabad, 88. Mumbai: Marg Publications, 1988.
Location
Ahmedabad, India
Images & Videos
Associated Names
Events
mid 16th/10th c. AH
Variant Names
Muhammad Ghaus Gwaliari Masjid
Alternate transliteration
Mohammed Ghaus Gwaliyari Masjid
Alternate transliteration
Building Usages
religious