Shah Jahan Mosque, Woking

Shah Jahan Mosque
Religion
Affiliation	Sunni Islam (previously Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement)
Location
Location	Oriental Road, Woking, England
Shown within Surrey
Geographic coordinates	51°19′18.5″N 0°32′51″W / 51.321806°N 0.54750°W / 51.321806; -0.54750Coordinates: 51°19′18.5″N 0°32′51″W / 51.321806°N 0.54750°W / 51.321806; -0.54750
Architecture
Architect(s)	W. I. Chambers
Type	Mosque
Style
Completed	1889 (1889)
Specifications
Dome(s)	1
Minaret(s)	2 miniature
Website
shahjahanmosque.org.uk

The Shah Jahan Mosque (also known as Woking Mosque) in Oriental Road, Woking, England, is the first purpose-built mosque in the United Kingdom. Built in 1889, it is located 30 miles (50 km) southwest of London. It is a Grade I listed building.^[1]

The Mosque promotes understanding, peace and harmony through interfaith activities.

Construction[]

The dome of Shah Jahan in 1945

Drawing by W. I. Chambers, in The Building News and Engineering Journal, 2 August 1889

The Shah Jahan Mosque was built in 1889 by Hungarian-British Orientalist Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner. It was partly funded by Sultan Shah Jahan Begum of Bhopal, as a place for students at the Oriental Institute in Woking to worship at. The mosque was designed by architect William Isaac Chambers (1847–1924) and built in Bath and Bargate stone. It was designed in a style, and has a dome, minarets, and a courtyard.^[2] The architecture was described by Pevsner Architectural Guides as "extraordinarily dignified".^[3]

The Oriental Institute, for the students of which the mosque was constructed, was founded by Leitner in 1881. He had purchased the former Royal Dramatic College building in Woking and established the Institute in order to promote oriental literature. It awarded degrees from the University of the Punjab in Lahore, Pakistan.^[2]

History[]

The mosque became the first formal place of Islamic worship in England. Queen Victoria's British Indian employees and her British Indian secretary, Abdul Karim, used the mosque when the Queen visited Windsor Castle. A small number of dignitaries, students, and guests used the mosque until Leitner's death in 1899, following which the mosque closed.^[2]

Chapter IX of HG Wells's "War of the Worlds", published in 1898, contains a description of the Mosque being set on fire.

Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement period[]

This section appears to contradict itself on Affiliation of the Mosque - lists a Sunni and Shi'i Trustee during this period. No source provided for overarching claim. Please see the talk page for more information. (April 2021)

The mosque fell into disuse between Leitner's death and 1913.^[4] The London Mosque fund (which was founded in 1910) created the Woking Mosque Trust on Wednesday April 17 1912.^[5] During that meeting it was agreed by all members that they were to take over the title deeds. It was also unanimously agreed by the committee members that Leitner's son should be elected to the Woking mosque trust committee. The Woking Mosque, the Memorial House and related property was passed into the ownership of the Woking Mosque Trust by a document of Indenture dated 12 April 1915^[6]

Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din's son Khwaja Nazir Ahmad gave credit to Mirza Sir Abbas Ali Baig for saving the mosque from being sold by the Leitner family for the purposes of a private factory.

"It is, however, with his services to the cause of Islam that we of the Woking Muslim Mission are chiefly concerned. It was Sir Abbas Ali Baig who saved from the hands of the Leitner family the Shah Jehan Mosque and Sir Salar Jung Memorial House at Woking and thus rescued them from the fate of being converted into a private factory. He subsequently founded the Woking Mosque Trust and raised funds for its maintenance."

— http://www.wokingmuslim.org/pers/aabaig.htm

Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din, a prominent Kashmiri lawyer was invited to become the Imam and help maintain the mosque.^[7] He worked to repair and revive the mosque. The mosque was managed from 1914 to the mid-1960s by members of the Lahore Ahmadiyya Movement.^{[citation needed]}

It attracted royal visitors and famous British converts, such as Lord Headley and Marmaduke Pickthall. The mosque became a centre of Islam in the UK. During the First World War, the incumbent imam, Sadr-Ud-Din, petitioned the UK government to grant nearby land to the mosque as a burial ground for British Indian Muslim soldiers. By 1917, this burial ground had been constructed and received the bodies of 19 soldiers from the hospital for British Indian soldiers at Brighton Pavilion.^[2]

Until the arrival of Pakistani immigrants in the UK in the 1960s, the Shah Jahan Mosque was the centre of Islam in Britain. It was from the mosque that The Islamic Review was published, as well as Maulana Muhammad Ali's popular English translations of the Quran. It has also been claimed as the location at which the name 'Pakistan' was coined.^[8] Among those that visited the mosque in this time were Faisal of Saudi Arabia, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Haile Selassie, Mir Yousuf Ali Khan, Aga Khan III, and Tunku Abdul Rahman.^[9]

Sunni period[]

By the 1960s, the Ahmadi influence of the mosque had declined and was seen more as a local mosque than vital to the practice of Islam in the UK. In the 1970s, it transferred into Sunni hands and was revived as an important place of worship in the community.^[10] The mosque was badly damaged in June 2016 after floods swamped homes in the surrounding area.^[11]

See also[]

• Woking Muslim Mission
• Khwaja Kamal-ud-Din
• Muslim Burial Ground, Horsell Common
• Mosque of the Bois de Vincennes

References[]

External links[]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Shah Jahan Mosque, Woking.

• Website: Shah Jahan Mosque
• AAIIL: Woking Mosque and the Woking Muslim Mission
• BBC: Forty Eight Hours – Tour: Woking Mosque (Photo of the Mosque in the 1900s)
• British Muslim Heritage – London’s Mosques
• Historic England. "the mosque (1264438)". National Heritage List for England.
• Historic England. "the entrance walls (1236747)". National Heritage List for England.