However, a few months ago, the local unit of the ASI, which has the responsibility of maintaining more than 200 monuments in Gujarat, took up the conservation project again, including the northern minaret of the historic Shah Alam Mosque in the south-eastern area of Ahmedabad. The southern minaret was restored in the first phase. "At ASI, we don't indulge in ordinary repairs of heritage buildings. We conserve them. As we wanted to do complete justice to the work, we didn't take up this minaret. Moreover, it was found that the damage was not serious enough to be taken up on a priority basis," explains an ASI official who worked to restore the monument under the guidance of superintending archaeologist KC Naurial. "Both the 27 metre high minarets of the mosque were damaged due to the 2001 earthquake, especially the top two floors of the southern minaret that had fallen down. As it was unsafe, its restoration was taken up immediately and completed by 2002," he informs. Now it is the turn of the northern minaret.
The Shah Alam Mosque was built by Sultan Ahmed Shah, the founder of Ahmedabad. Sultan Ahmed Shah had built a number of magnificent mosques and tombs in the area which later bore his name and went on to become one of the prominent cities in western India: Ahmedabad. The Shah Alam Mosque in the southern periphery of the city was built by the Sultan in the early part of the 15th century. Built in the Indo-Saracenic style, the mosque is an elegantly constructed structure with arches and carved brackets adding to the beauty of the four galleries that comprise the main prayer hall. Added to the main building around 1620 AD were two minarets, each rising up to 27 metres. Though all the structures withstood the vagaries of nature for four centuries, the earthquake of January 2001 damaged the two minarets. The two top floors of the southern minaret collapsed in the quake while the northern one developed minor cracks and tilted slightly.
http://newageislam.com/historic-shah-alam-mosque-restored-to-old-glory-/islamic-world-news/d/1731
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5:05 AM
Moderate Islamist here
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