HYDERABAD: The grandeur of the intricately-designed minarets of the 432-year-old Khairati Begum Mosque, a major attraction for heritage enthusiasts and tourists, will be reinstated within the next three months, if everything goes as scheduled. The mosque’s restoration work which started in early March, has been going on at a brisk space.
Constructed in the traditional Qutub Shahi style with ornamentation of parapets and stuccos, and modelled on the designs of minars in Cairo, Khairati Begum’s mosque’s condition had deteriorated through the centuries.The lime plaster and stucco work were peeling off at many places with vegetal growth heavy at the rear end of the mosque.
The restoration work was necessitated further as thousands visit the mosque on Fridays for jumma prayers. Secondly, the masjid compound houses a madrasa where numerous children acquire knowledge. Fortunately for them, whenever chunks of lime plaster or concrete had fallen down in the past, there had been no people around.
Shankar, the superintending engineer of the restoration project undertaken by the State Archaeology and Museums Department, was seen sitting on the roof of the mosque keeping an eye on the six artisans working on the project. Pointing at two artisans perched up on top of a scaffold, Shankar said, “We are currently working on the minarets. Earlier,” -- pointing at another minaret which hasn’t been attended to yet -- “these were dilapidated. Cracks had formed on the surface, some where even hollow inside.” After the completion of restoration on the minarets, jaalis and stuccos, the roof of the mosque will be taken up. “The whole project will be finished within three months. We also have some plastering work to do on the compound boundary wall,” he added.
A sanad from Aurangzeb’s reign says the mosque was built by Khairatun-Nisa Begum alias Man Saheba for her tutor Akhund Mulla Abdul Malik. The Akhund had died while on his way to a pilgrimage and the dome to this day remains vacant.