Pakistan - Badshahi Mosque, Lahore

The mosque and its vast courtyard are raised upon a platform which is approached from the east by a handsome flight of 22 steps an upstanding gateway of traditional Moghal type. The entrance which is a double storey edifice is elaborately decorated with framed and carved panelling on all its facades. At the four corners there are square minarets surmounted by pseudo-pavilions of red sandstone with white marble cupolas. At the four corners of the courtyard are the tall octogonal minars (towers). Four smaller minarets, also octogonal, are attached to the corners of the prayer chamber. Above them rise three grand bulbous marble domes. The red sandstone of the building is decorated externally with unobtrusive lines and patterns in white marble inlay. The embellishment of the prayer chamber in the interior and exterior with Zanjira interlacing and flowers with their spidery tendrils, and treated in bold relief, is a unique work of unsurpassed beauty and workmanship in Moghal architecture. The inscription on the gateway indicates that it was built in A.H. 1084 (1673-74 A.D.)