Sidi Saiyyed Mosque

The Sidi Saiyyed Mosque, built in 1573, is one of the most famous mosques of Ahmedabad. As attested by the marble stone tablet fixed on the wall of the mosque, it was built by Sidi Saeed or Sidi Saiyyed, an Abyssinian in the retinue of Bilal Jhajar Khan, general in the army of the last Sultan Shams-ud-Din Muzaffar Shah III of the Gujarat Sultanate.

The mosque was built in the last year of the existence of Sultanate of Gujarat. The mosque is entirely arcuated and is famous for beautifully carved ten stone latticework windows (jalis) on the side and rear arches. The rear wall is filled with square stone pierced panels in geometrical designs. The two bays flanking the central aisle have reticulated stone slabs carved in designs of intertwined trees and foliage and a palm motif.

This intricately carved stone window is the Siddi Sayyed Jali, the unofficial symbol of city of Ahmedabad and the inspiration for the design of the logo of the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad. This mosque is extremely strong, as it is made of stones and after many years the stones it go back to the ground and day by day it becomes much stronger.

Sometimes by looking at the Jalis one might wonder why there is a gap in the middle ? It is said that when it was built, it had one more jali in the center but some say that when the Britishers came to India they tried to take the middle one but it broke. They even tried once again but it cracked and finally they realised that it was impossible to remove it.The central window arch of the mosque, where one would expect to see another intricate jali, is instead walled with stone.This is possibly because the mosque was not completed according to plan before the Mughals invaded Gujarat.