Friday Mosque of Herat
The Friday Mosque of Herat (مسجد جمعه هرات), also known as the Jumah Mosque, is a mosque in the city of Herat, in the Herat Province of north-western Afghanistan. It was built by the Timurids and extended by several rulers swapping hands down the centuries between the Timurids, Safavids, Mughals and the Uzbeks all supported the mosque before switching hands. Though many of the glazed tiles have been replaced during subsequent periods, the Friday Mosque in Herat was given its present form during the closing years of the fifteenth century. Apart from numerous small neighborhood mosques for daily prayer, most communities in the Islamic world have a larger mosque for Friday services with a sermon. This was not always the largest mosque in Herat; a much larger complex also built by the Timurids, the Mosque and Madressa of Gawharshad, was located to the north. Those architectural monuments were dynamited by officers of the British Indian Army under British supervision in 1885 so that it could not be used as a fortress if a Russian army tried to invade India.
History
The Masjid-i Jami of Herat, the city's first congregational mosque, was built on the site of two smaller Zorastrian Fire temples that were destroyed by earthquake and fire. A mosque was begun by Ghurid ruler Ghiyath al-Din Muhammad b. Sam (1162-1202) in 1200 (597 AH), and continued after his death by his brother and successor Shihab al-Din. This is confirmed both by an inscription on the eastern Ghurid portal uncovered in 1964 during a restoration, and by the sixteenth century Timurid historian Khwandamir in his Khulasat al-Akhbar.[1]
Timurids
In the thirteenth century, Genghis Khan destroyed the province and the small building fell into ruin. Rebuilding and renovation programs were undertaken by the Mongol convert rulers. After a devastating earthquake in the mid 13th century the building left completely destroyed and left to collapse. After 1397, the Timurid rulers redirected Herat's growth towards the North. This suburbanization and the building of a new Friday mosque in Gawhar Shad's Musalla marked the end of the Masjid-i Jami's patronage by a monarchy. Construction of a entire new building and surrounding gardens completed by Jalal al-Din Firuzshah, one of the most prominent amirs of Shah Rukh (1405-1444). It is said that the decorations alone were completed over the course of five years, bringing in workers from all over the empire. The mosque was given a final renovation under the Mughals of India, when prince Khurram (shah Jahan) was fighting for control of the region against the Uzbek tribes.[1]
19th Century
Little of the medieval Mosque remains, after the Anglo-Afghan wars much of the mosque was left destroyed. A program launched in 1945 rebuilt walls and rooms, expanded the northeastern section of the mosque from a length of approximately 101 meters to 121 meters and replaced expensive material from all over the medieval Timurid and Mughal Empires streching from Iraq to India with local cheap material. Overall, the mosque's multiple reconstructions and restoration programs leave little to authenticate as original. [1]
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