Jama Masjid, New Delhi

Formally known as Masjid e Jahan Numa, meaning the mosque that shows the world, this grand congregational sanctuary was raised by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan between 1650 and 1656 and has served as the beating heart of old Delhi ever since. The Arabic word jāmi'a simply means the gathering mosque, the one appointed for the Friday khutbah, and in the lanes below the Red Fort this vast sandstone and marble house of prayer has held that role for nearly four centuries. Shah Jahan, may God have mercy on him, the same ruler who raised the Taj Mahal in memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal rahimahallah, intended Jama Masjid to be the spiritual counterpart to the fort he had just completed across the square.

Delhi's association with Islam reaches back to the twelfth century, when the city became the seat of the Delhi Sultanate and later the imperial capital of the Mughals. Generations of scholars shaped its intellectual life, among them Shah Waliullah of Delhi, may God have mercy on him, whose writings on the Quran and on prophetic tradition still echo in madrasas across South Asia. The streets of old Delhi around the mosque, threaded with the kebab houses of Karim's, the attar stalls of Dariba Kalan and the covered bazaar of Chandni Chowk, preserve a living Mughal atmosphere that few other cities in the subcontinent can match.

The architecture is a masterpiece of imperial confidence. Three great gateways of red sandstone rise from a broad platform reached by long flights of steps, the courtyard itself holds twenty five thousand worshippers, and the western prayer hall is crowned by three bulbous marble domes striped in black and white. Four slender minarets, each banded in red and white marble, frame the skyline, while the interior bears inlaid Quranic inscriptions in delicate pietra dura. A small northern chamber houses relics said to include a strand of the Prophet's blessed hair, shown to visitors on special mornings.

Visitors climb the broad steps barefoot after leaving their shoes at the gate, and modest dress is expected of everyone entering the courtyard. During Ramadan the iftar cannon echoes over the platform as vast tables of haleem, nihari and sheermal appear, and the nights of taraweeh stretch until Fajr. On Eid, tens of thousands gather in reverent rows beneath the striped domes, preserving an imperial congregation that has greeted the new crescent over Delhi for almost four hundred years.