Lal Masjid, Delhi

The Lal Masjid of Delhi, also known as the Fakr-ul Masjid or Sikandar Sahib's Masjid, is a mosque located in Bara Bazaar, near the Kashmiri Gate in Old Delhi, in the north of the city, in India.

History

The building was built in 1728 by Kaniz-i-Fatima, in memory of her husband, Shujaat Khan, a noble in the court of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. Colonel James Skinner repaired the mosque and its construction is sometimes misattributed to him.
Illustrations and descriptions of the mosque were included in Reminiscences of Imperial Delhi, by Sir Thomas Metcalfe, published in 1844.
In the 1857 Siege of Delhi the mosque was damaged, and has since been repaired.

Architecture

The mosque sits on a raised plinth of approximately and stands above the adjacent shop-lined streets. The main complex consists of three rooms each with its own arched entryway. Two striped towers on either side of the center arch are mirrored by the mosque's two minarets standing at the rear corners of building. Behind a decorated parapet on the roof of the mosque sit three white and black marble domes. The building's prominent use of red sandstone and white marble is considered unusual for the period, though many of its other features, including its minarets and domes, are closely modelled off of the major mosques of Delhi including the nearby Jama Masjid.