The little mosque, situated a little way up the hill below the shrine of Makhdum Sahib, was built by the crown prince Dara Shikoh, son of Shah Jahan, for his tutor Akhun Mulla Shah (Plate XII). It is built of beautiful grey limestone.
Its plan is singular, the design of the prayer chamber being repeated on the east side of the courtyard and forming the gateway. On the north and the south sides of the courtyard are arcades, treated in the same way as the wings of the prayer chamber. Usually, the arcades around the quadrangle in front of a mosque are treated quite differently from any part of the prayer chamber. The somewhat cramped proportions of the courtyard in this case may be due to the slope of the hill on which it stands, and the difficulty which would have been experienced in making the prayer chamber wide. The stone lotus finial over the pulpit is the only example of its kind surviving in Kashmir. The only external decorations are the rectangular panels enclosing cusped arches.
On a lower level are the ruins of the arched halls wherein pilgrims used to lodge. A little further off is the hammam, which is now closed up. On the lintel of its doorway is the following inscription:
Tarikh - i - hammam - o masjid - i - Sultan Dara Shikoh
Hammam - i tu o masjidat ai dida baz
Garm ast yake yake jama’at pardaz
Tarikh - i bina - i har du ra goyad Shah
Yak ja - i wazu amad - o yak ja - i namaz
Translation: The date of the construction of the hammam and the mosque of Sultan Dara Shikoh.
Thy hammam and thy mosque: one affords warmth and the other adorns the congregation. The king tells the date of the foundation of both: the one is the place of ablution and the other the place of worship.
The last line contains the chronogram giving the date, A.H. 1059, corresponding to A.D. 16491.
1R.C.Kak, Ancient Monuments of Kashmir (Kashmir: Ali Mohammad & Sons, 2005), 90-91.