Badshahi Mosque

The Badshahi Mosque is in Lahore, a big city in Pakistan.

A mosque is a building where Muslims gather to pray. This one is made of red stone with white domes.

The Badshahi Mosque stands in the northwest corner of Lahore, in Pakistan, right beside Lahore Fort. A mosque is a building where Muslims gather to pray.

Its front faces the fort across a rectangular garden square called the Hazuri Bagh. The Punjab government's Auqaf department calls it one of Lahore's most iconic landmarks.

UNESCO's Tentative List entry places the mosque in the northwest corner of Lahore, adjacent to Lahore Fort. The Punjab Auqaf and Religious Affairs Department describes its setting: the entrance lies on the west side of the rectangular Hazuri Bagh, facing the Alamgiri Gate of Lahore Fort on its east side, with the Roshnai Gate, one of Lahore's original thirteen gates, to the south.

The department calls the mosque an important example of Mughal architecture and the largest and most recent of the grand imperial mosques of the Mughal era.

You climb 22 steps to go in.

Inside is a huge open courtyard with a pool of water. Tall towers called minarets stand at the corners.

The mosque and its huge courtyard sit on a raised platform. From the east, visitors climb 22 steps to a two-story gateway decorated with carved panels.

The courtyard has a water pool, and tall eight-sided minarets stand at its four corners. Four smaller eight-sided minarets stand at the corners of the prayer hall.

The UNESCO entry describes the mosque and its vast courtyard raised on a platform approached from the east by a flight of 22 steps and a traditional Mughal gateway, a double-story building with framed and carved panelling on every facade. At the four corners, the entry says, square minarets are topped by red sandstone pavilions with white marble cupolas. Tall octagonal minarets mark the four corners of the courtyard, and four smaller octagonal minarets are attached to the corners of the prayer chamber.

The Auqaf Department describes a square layout with a central courtyard and water pond, and a square entrance lobby reached by the 22 steps.

In the photo, the red mosque has three white domes.

A big arch is in the front. People walk across the huge red courtyard.

The photo, taken in July 2005, looks across the wide red courtyard at the prayer hall. You can see the three white marble domes, the tall arch in the front with white marble lines around it, a row of smaller arches on each side, and minarets with little domed tops. A few people are walking across the courtyard.

Near the mosque's entrance is the tomb of Muhammad Iqbal, a poet widely honored in Pakistan.

The photo (1 July 2005) faces the prayer hall across the paved courtyard: three bulbous white marble domes with finials, the tall central arch framed with white marble inlay, five smaller arches on either side, crenellated parapets, two minarets at the prayer hall's corners with domed pavilions, a taller courtyard minaret at the far left, and small groups of visitors.

The Auqaf Department notes the tomb of the poet Muhammad Iqbal near the entrance, along with that of Sir Sikandar Hayat Khan, whom it credits with a major role in the mosque's preservation and restoration.