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heritage Mountain
legacy
heritage Jama Masjid in New Delhi and Badshahi Masjid in Lahore -- one an affirmation of India’s secular ideals and the other a perfect manifestation of Pakistan’s Islamic heritage By Kaiser Tufail A short walk from Chandni
Chowk down the oddly-named Esplanade Road brings you to Old Delhi’s (or
Shahjahanabad’s) famous Sooner one looks around after entering through the main portal, the ubiquitous subcontinental tout emerges to help you with the history of the mosque, “in a language of your choice, sahib.” Sooner he is shooed off, a greedy-looking man in kurta-pyjama complete with a Nehru cap introduces himself as being from the mosque management, and announces the ‘official’ rates for using your own camera: Rs 25 for stills and Rs 75 for videos. “The scores of foreigners milling around have been charged more,” he whispers, “for they are not our Musalman biradaran (Muslim brothers).” Half-pleased to be of the chosen people, I and my wife enter the courtyard to peruse India’s largest mosque commissioned by the definitive aesthete, Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan. Quite unlike anything we
had seen at our Badshahi Masjid in Lahore, we noted with some astonishment, a
sizeable community of The structure of the Jama Masjid is eye-catching indeed and at first glance, one notes the pinkish hue of its sandstone compared to the more ruddy appearance of the Lahore mosque. The Jama Masjid is archetypal of the Mughal mosques, with a lofty main portal, huge courtyard, tall minarets, a prayer hall capped by three domes girdled by minor kiosks and, a well-embellished arched main entrance flanked by numerous smaller ones. The Jama Masjid’s main entrance to the prayer hall is, however, disproportionately large and obscures three-quarters of the central dome when viewed from the main portal across the courtyard. The Badshahi Masjid suffers from a similar imperfection. Only the main entrance of the Taj Mahal seems to have got the proportions right with respect to the central dome, as both elements can be seen complementing each other, like a perfect ensemble. Unlike the Badshahi Masjid, which has four tall minarets at the corners of the courtyard and another four short ones at the corners of the prayer hall, the Jama Masjid has only two minarets at the front corners of the prayer hall; four squat bastions or burj with Rajput style chhatris and arched pavilions dot the courtyard corners. The courtyard of Badshahi Masjid is over two-and-a-half times larger than that of Jama Masjid, so the scheme and number of minarets seem eminently suited to the respective dimensions of the two mosques. The white marble domes of
Jama Masjid have thin black stripes, which make them look more natural and
organic, if you will: As we walked towards the prayer hall, we looked through the arched colonnades and spotted the Red Fort in the distance, with its main Lahore Gate beckoning us Lahoris for a visit which was undertaken shortly afterwards. While we are at arches, I am reminded of an impressive view from one of Badshahi Masjid’s colonnade arches, which frames the Minar-e-Pakistan like a lighthouse in a sea of Sunday revellers. A badge typifying the Islamic Republic of Pakistan could not come out better. The Jama Masjid’s prayer hall is slightly smaller than that of Badshahi Masjid but is equally imposing, and is richly embellished. White marble inlay (pietra dura) exquisitely decorates the red sandstone outer walls, while stucco work, flowing arabesques and bright floral themes on inner walls and ceiling, leave no doubt about the supremely refined artisanship under Mughal administration. Akbar’s grand mosque at Fatehpur Sikri (completed 1572 AD) has served as the basis for the design of Shah Jahan’s Jama Masjid (completed 1656 AD) while in turn, Aurangzeb’s Badshahi Masjid (completed 1674 AD) is well-rooted in the Jama Masjid’s design. We saw no harm in architectural ideas being creatively shared within the Mughal family! While purveying the prayer hall, we overheard a tour guide proclaim that the mosque’s prayer niche (mehraab) was aligned to Ka’aba so perfectly that it could be checked by modern implements to the last decimal of a degree. On our return, I hastened to check the accuracy through Google Earth and can confirm that the tour guide was no fibber. A similar check of the niche at Badshahi Masjid, revealed slightly lesser accuracy (off by about two degrees), but with most schools of thought surprisingly liberal on this issue, one needn’t lose sleep over skewing the prayer rows! The Jama Masjid environs
are regrettably quite messy, with no green areas, no worthwhile car parking
and, plenty of rubbish The Badshahi Masjid has done much better on this count, with better overall cleanliness, at least in the immediate vicinity. The well-maintained Hazuri Bagh provides a comforting welcome to the visitors, though the cold drinks kiosks and ice cream freezers lining the garden perimeter do their bit to blight the scene. A little afar, the comprehensively potholed parking lot that precedes the Roshnai Gate is a makeshift affair and, being unpaved, remains practically a dust heap. Razor wires and the senselessly placed star barriers (now, akin to national symbols in Pakistan) pay lip service to security, without regard for busloads of sightseeing schoolchildren who have to fend for themselves around these atrocious barricades. It is gratifying to see the two famous Mughal mosques still fully functional and, in a reasonably good state of repair. Multi-religious India sees the continued glory of Jama Masjid as an affirmation of its secular ideals, while Pakistan showcases its Badshahi Masjid as a perfect manifestation of its Islamic heritage. Emperors Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb had, on the other hand, sought to display imperial splendour wrapped in innocuous layers of faith and piety -- an effort that served its purpose well. Today, quite the other way round, the devout find it intensely satisfying to seek faith and piety under harmless imperial splendour. Who knows but Allah, if the excesses committed by the emperors might pale in the shadows of the two glorious mosques, for they continue to echo His name three-and-a-half centuries later. Email:
kaiser_mach2@yahoo.com Sheikh Badin National Park in DIK is fast losing its natural heritage By Mohammad Niaz Those who have been to
Table Mountain National Park, having a flat-mountain-top, in Cape Town, South
Africa, may be This sheer symbolic mountainous area having an inspirational, historical, and biological significance is fading from memories for want of appropriate planning and major developmental inputs since the British regime in 1860. The scenic splendour as a hill station and inspirational sanctuary for reclusion of sanctimonious and cloistered entities in the past have earned name for the area, which is generally pre-dominant with arid climatic and topographic features. Back in the British era the English used it as a hill station for administration purpose ,depriving the indigenous people of the privilege to have an open access to the summit because of the warden off boundaries. By 1880s some improvisation of the site was undertaken by the British administration as a hill station which served as district headquarter where open kuchehry was held to settle issues. Today, visitors here have nothing to avail in terms of recreation and outing as most of the buildings reminiscent of past have suffered an enormous loss over time owing to lack of development. Access to the top of Sheikh Badin is a challenging endeavour both by road or by foot. To facilitate their carriages and goods supply through mules and donkeys, the British administration started construction of a single source of access in the form of a 10km-long road as a prime pursuit from Pezu, a small village at the base of the Sheikh Badin. Visitors without 4x4 vehicles organise local transport for the incredible journey. From a distance the ascent does not seem so testing but getting onto the track casts a realisation of the arduous undertaking. Given the worse condition of the track due to non-maintenance, the smooth drive is hampered especially due to slides and rains with inadequate repairs by the locals on self-help basis. With steep gradient and the bad track condition a vehicle takes about an hour to reach onto the top; however, four hour-adventurous walk of visitors with intermittent stopovers can be another option to cover the track. Local people for their ease use a couple of short-cut trails to shorten the distance. It provides only an experiential sensation when just after about one hour ascendant drive from Pezu having about 1,300 feet elevation, the difference in temperature is obviously observed as in summer the lowland areas are steaming with heat having over 45°C. The park offers a squash court constructed by the British officers. A four km circular kacha track built at that time around the Gonda facilitated jogging and walking. A bit further from the residential ruins, a British cemetery over an area of about four canals, used for ceremonies of burial and offering homage to the dear ones, still exists with vanishing grace and traces. For meeting purposes all visitors still commonly use a wide lawn as a picnic spot. Now silted, the water tanks were established to ensure rainwater storage. In fact, scarcity of potable water is one of the leading problems for the local residents. Biological significance and importance of the area can be gauged from the fact that it has been managed as a reserved forest since 1952, which was also declared latter as a game sanctuary in 1972 by the government to safeguard the indigenous biological treasure of the area. The Sheikh Badin was subsequently notified as a national park by the provincial wildlife department in 1993 over an area of 15540 hectares, which is one of the pioneering national parks in the province. Sheikh Badin mountain range serves as a ‘biological island’ because of the fact that its corridor connectivity got lost with the Suleiman mountain range owing to the sprawling human habitations in the vicinity of its corridor which led to extinction of Suleiman markhor from the Sheikh Badin. “It serves as a mountain oasis in the desert type habitat of the surroundings, because there is no scrub vegetation in the vicinity and this uniqueness distinguishes this chunk of mountain range as a biological island. Efforts are being made to manage the park on scientific basis with involvement of local communities to safeguard biological treasure and legacy of this unprecedented mountain through appropriate management planning,” says Dr Muhammad Mumtaz Malik, a wildlife conservationist of KP. The outskirts and heights of Sheikh Badin are studded with abundant growth of dense scrub forest vegetation including olive, phulai, kikar, and sanatha to enhance the eye-soothing effect and to keep the microclimate moderate. The park is being managed by the provincial wildlife department to preserve wilderness of the Sheikh Badin forests through participation of the local communities around. As the “beauty and the beast” phrase is known to many, same goes for Sheikh Badin as well where right in the foothill a cement factory is exuding its constant dust and smoke out of its towering chimneys that serve as a blemish against the backdrop of this beautiful natural setting. Moreover, like termites eat up wood, mineral extraction and quarrying in the vicinity of Sheikh Badin is inflicting irreparable loss that actively contributes to gradual spoiling of this natural heritage.
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Jama Masjid. Dense and narrow bazaars, similar to ours in Lahore’s Anarkali,
fill the long vanished canal that once bisected a tree-lined esplanade (or
walkway) in front of the nearby Red Fort. You cannot fail to be distracted by
shops peddling jewellery, perfumes, spices, brocades, silks, Quranic CDs, and
even coffin shrouds and funerary accoutrements. A bit of each for the
‘here’ and the ‘hereafter’, so to speak. In a few minutes, you find
yourself against an impressive stairway platform that leads up to the
mosque’s main (eastern) portal. The mosque is sited on what was once a
small hillock so it could offer a magnificent view from afar, but now the
congested localities barely allow a minaret to peek through.
squatters, hippies and tired tourists sprawling in the colonnaded galleries
adjacent to the courtyard. The courtyard itself gave a rather unkempt look,
what with rugs and reed mats scattered shabbily. Tangles of electric wires
hanging between chandeliers, loudspeakers and junction boxes were equally
unsightly and, reflected poorly on the mosque management, that is: the Waqf
Board which is constituted under the government’s Waqf Department. It may
be noted that the Archaeological Survey of India, on the other hand, has done
a good job in care and maintenance of historical sites in Delhi, most of
which hark back to the Islamic era.
Emperor Babar’s much-loved musk melons would not be a wholly inapt
description, I thought! White inlaid stripes are also echoed in the two
minarets, emphasising verticality whilst subtly alleviating the monotony of
red sandstone.
that keeps none but the omnipresent kites and crows in good cheer. An
ambitious municipal plan to beautify the place has not quite taken off,
though it promises to restore some glory to this otherwise remarkable mosque.
surprised at its similarity with the paramount summit of the Sheikh Badin
National Park in Dera Ismail Khan District in southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.