Kali Masjid, Nizamuddin, Delhi

The Kali ("black") Masjid stands on the eastern edge of Basti Nizamuddin in Delhi, near the shrine of Shaykh Nizam al-Din Awliya. ^{1 4} The inscription over its east gate, after praying for Sultan Abu al-Muzaffar Firuz Shah, says that the mosque was built by Junan Shah Maqbul, entitled Khan-i Jahan, son of Khan-i Jahan in AH 772, and asks those who pray in it to remember the builder with the Fatiha and prayers. ² The author thinks his father Khan-i Jahan Maqbul Tilangani may have planned it before his death in AH 770/1368, since it stands close to his tomb at Nizamuddin. ^{5 4}

The mosque is square, about 27 metres a side, on a hypostyle plan with single-bay arcades around four open courts, the type R. Nath calls chaturangana. ³ It is entered through square gateways with arch-and-beam doorways; inside, cloisters of square bays have heavy piers at each corner, made of two or four plain monolithic pillars, with pointed arches between, and each bay is roofed by a cupola on the chahar taq system. ^{3 5} The prayer hall is three bays deep with no monumental dome, and the mosque shows the marks of its age emphatically: conical corner bastions, tapering turrets beside the gateways and battered outer walls. ⁵ It is built of rubble covered with plaster that blackened with time, which gave it its name, and some prominent surfaces may once have been glazed-tiled. ^{3 5}

It shares the four-court plan of the Khirki Masjid, which the author takes to be a little later and the more beautiful of the two, and with its projecting entrances and rounded bastions it recalls the enclosure of the tomb of Sultan Ghari. ^{2 3} She explains the plan as protection from the sun on the courtyard paving and from the monsoon rains, with light and air preserved, and notes that it was not repeated after Firuz Shah. ^{4 6} The mosque has been heavily restored and rebuilt, with only one wall said to survive from Firuz Shah's time; it has been whitewashed and redecorated, and part of its cupolas replaced by a flat roof of iron girders and reinforced brick. ^{7 8 3 5}