Mosque of Isa Khan Niyazi, Delhi

This mosque was built by Isa Khan Niyazi, an Afghan noble who served Sher Shah and then his son Islam Shah, on the west side of the octagonal enclosure at whose centre stands his tomb; the enclosure has a massive rubble wall with recessed arches on its inner face and a monumental gateway on the north. ¹ An inscription on the mihrab of the octagonal tomb records its construction in AH 954/1547-48 by Masnad-i Ali Isa Khan son of Niyaz Aghwan, and the mosque seems to have been built at the same time. ¹

The prayer hall has three bays with three equal, broad, pointed, double-recessed arches on stone pilasters, their outlines inlaid with green and blue tile. ¹ The central arch sits in a red-stone frame with recessed niches on three sides, a feature taken from the Moth ki Masjid, decorated with turquoise and green tile; the side arches are of local grey stone, their spandrel medallions of incised stucco inlaid with green, blue and yellow tile, which Nath says rival the best Moorish work of the kind. ¹ The parapet merlons bear the word lillah, and the qibla wall has three equal mihrabs with carved nook-shafts and calligraphy. ² A broad high dome on an octagonal drum crowns the central bay, flanked by two octagonal stone chhatris. ²

For Nath this is the first successful example of the three-arched mosque: a unified composition in which arch and chhajja, dome and chhatri, red sandstone and grey quartzite, stonework and glazed tile work together, as at the Man Mandir of Gwalior, with the shade so needed in a tropical climate. ^{2 3}