Safa Shahouri Masjid

Safa Shahouri Masjid in Ponda is thought to have been built around 1560 by Ibrahim Adil Shah I of Bijapur, though no inscription confirms the date and it may be older. It is the one mosque in Goa that escaped total destruction under the Portuguese, although it was burned and lay in ruins until partial rebuilding in the 1980s. It is now protected by the ASI as a Monument of National Importance.

The name Safa comes from the Arabic for pure, and the building is plain: a single rectangular prayer hall under a terracotta-tiled roof. Beside it is a laterite water tank lined with small mihrab-shaped chambers, and the complex also has a garden laid out in the charbagh pattern. There are no shops or stalls, and the site is usually quiet.