Hazrat Nizamuddin Hussain Shah Bagdadi Rahmatullah Alaih Mosque

Hidden within the bustling lanes of Mumbai, this mosque remembers a Baghdadi saint whose name carries the scent of the Tigris across to the Arabian Sea. Hazrat Nizamuddin Hussain Shah Bagdadi, whose blessed memory it honours, was one of many scholars of Iraqi origin who reached the western coast of India centuries ago, travelling along the dhow routes that bound Basra, Muscat and Bombay into a single commercial and spiritual network. Mumbai's Muslim heritage is richly layered, shaped by Gujarati merchants, Konkani traders, Hyderabadi migrants and families from the Gulf who settled beside the old docks of Mazgaon and Bhendi Bazaar. The city has produced imams, muftis and poets of lasting renown, from the scholars of Anjuman I Islam founded in 1874 to the popular preachers whose voices have filled its Ramadan nights for a hundred seasons.

The building occupies a slim lot between low apartment blocks in Maharashtra's greatest metropolis, and its entrance is marked by a carved teak doorway painted in green and gold. Inside, a long rectangular prayer hall opens onto a small shaded courtyard where worshippers perform wudu beside a marble fountain installed by the founding family in memory of their parents. Ceiling fans stir the humid air above rows of green carpets, and a delicately worked mother of pearl minbar gleams beside a mihrab inscribed with calligraphic Ayat al Kursi.

The congregation is a living cross section of Mumbai Muslim life. Dockworkers, shopkeepers from Crawford Market, clerks from the nearby government offices and auto rickshaw drivers off shift form the core of daily attendance. Friday prayers spill onto the pavement and a loudspeaker carries the khutba in Urdu to those on the street. During Ramadan the trust that runs the mosque organises iftar for hundreds of working men who cannot reach home before sundown, serving chana, dates and cooling rooh afza alongside bowls of haleem cooked in vast copper pots out back.

Travellers who find the mosque by accident while wandering Mumbai's old quarters are invariably greeted with affection, offered a glass of water and invited to sit for a moment on the cool stone step beside the ablution fountain before resuming their journey through the city's ceaseless tide of commerce.