Qutbuddin Mosque

Formally named after Qutb al-Din Shah, the Qutbuddin Mosque is a former mosque, now partly ruined, about 270 metres inside the Delhi Gate on the main street of old Ahmedabad. An inscription dates its foundation to 1449, but scholars credit it to Ahmad Shah II, who took the title Qutb al-Din Shah on becoming sultan. It is a Monument of National Importance. Roads and huts have taken roughly a fifth of its grounds, and parts have been used to store cotton and as homes.

The rectangular building, about 45 by 11 metres, follows the plan of Ahmad Shah's Mosque on a larger scale. Its most striking features are the robust, finely carved buttresses in Hindu temple style that once carried twin minarets, flanking a screen of five arches. Five large and ten small domes rest on sixty pillars. Inside are five mihrabs, the main one of white and grey marble, and in front of the mosque is a square cistern once worked by a water wheel.