Know Your City: Ahmedabad’s Sidi Saiyyed mosque and its intricate ‘jaali’ work

The ‘jaali’, which is also the official symbol of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA), is one of the most popular among official souvenirs.

Built by an Abyssinian, Sidi Saeed or Sidi Saiyyed, said to be a “slave” of Ahmed Shah, the mosque has been described as a “simple and unassuming structure” in a publication by the Gujarat Government — Architectural Heritage of Gujarat. The book ‘Ahmadabad’ mentions how the Abyssinians “rose to prominence at this time and further weakened the power of the government”.

It is said that the mosque was used as an office during the British era till Lord George Nathaniel Curzon visited Ahmedabad during his famine tour and got the Sidi Saiyed mosque cleared. (Express photo by Nirmal Harindran)

The mosque’s most distinguishing features are the ten window screens of which two have the intricate tree design. The book ‘Ahmadabad’ describes it as “whole slabs of pierced intertwined tree and foliage designs, in one a ‘palm and parasite’ motif”.

It says, “There are no screens elsewhere in India to compare with these in either skill or beauty, although an imitation of one design occurs in one of Akbar’s early buildings at Fatehpur Sikri.”

The Gujarat Government publication describes it as a “date tree surrounded by freely flowing curvaceous branches of another type of tree”, that has ended up looking “seamless, as though made of one plate of stone”.

This mosque was built almost 150 years after the Jama Masjid and other Indo-Islamic monuments in Ahmedabad. The government publication says, “Here, in this mosque, this tracery is like a tribute to the craftsmanship of Gujarat.” It adds that the jaalis of Sidi Saiyed are like an “insignia” of Ahmedabad.

It is said that the mosque was used as an office during the British era till Lord George Nathaniel Curzon, famously known as Lord Curzon, who served as the viceroy from 1899-1905, visited Ahmedabad during his famine tour in 1900 and got the Sidi Saiyed mosque cleared.

H Caldwell Lipsett’s book ‘Lord Curzon in India’ chronicles how he visited an “ancient mosque of which the windows are formed on a design probably unique in the world. On the wall of the mosque there is the outline of a tree springing from a single stem, and the interstices in its branches form the windows”.

The book goes on to say how the viceroy found “all the graven work of this beautiful design had been used by the local babus to store old documents and papers”. He immediately got it cleared and restored the mosque to its original beauty.

In 2017, late Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his wife Akie Abe visited the mosque with Modi. An official note from the Gujarat government, during the visit, had said, “The unique carving of the Jalli has given 600-year-old Ahmedabad city a distinctive identity.” It had also added how the Russian Czar Nicholas II had seen the ‘jaali’ during his world tour in 1890 and the late Queen Elizabeth had visited the mosque in 1961.

This is among the few mosques protected by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) that is still being used for prayers. The iconic monument stands at a busy crossroad of the city, known as Lal Darwaza.