In the old walled city of Lahore there are two buildings that can be classified as the oldest - ancient in a sense. Very little is written about these true treasures that are worth exploring. They are the pre-Mughal mosques known as Khizri Masjid and Neevin Masjid.

In this piece let dwell on Neevin Masjid for it has issues that need discussion. The Khizri Masjid has undergone name changes, an ailment that rules our communal mind. Hopefully with time and education a better understanding of history might prevail. But I will dwell on it too in another piece. If you enter Lahore’s oldest gateway, that is Lohari Darwaza, which was the main entrance before the Mughal Akbar expanded the original Lahore, you head towards Naya Bazaar inside Chowk Matti. There branch off towards Kucha Dogran. In the middle you will come across Neevin Masjid.

This unique mosque is located 25 feet below the outside surface, and hence the name Neevin – or low, below. Its location could be one reason why the Muslim hordes of the last Mughal invader Babar missed it while flattening the entire walled city. Maybe the ones before also missed it for this reason. The question that has always bothered me is just ‘why is it 25 feet, the height of a normal two-storey building, below the outer surface?’ But before we tackle such issues a bit about the mosque.

This mosque was built almost over 560 years ago in 1460 AD during the Lodhi rule over Lahore. Which makes it the oldest structure in the original walled city before Akbar. The ruler then was Bahlul Lodhi and the governor of Lahore was Haybat Khan. In his court was an influential official by the name of Zulfikhar Khan, who built this mosque, with one account claiming he lived next to it.

Many might jump to the conclusion that the grave of Ayaz the beautiful Georgian slave of the Afghan invader Mahmud, is much older. Ayaz committed suicide on the 10th of August, 1041, and was buried outside the city walls. He was never the governor as some claim, but an adviser-cum-helper. His grave was ‘discovered’ much after Neevin Masjid was built, and came within the new walled city in Akbar’s days.

One interesting feature of this mosque is that even in non-Muslim rule with the majority of the population being non-Muslim, this mosque was never touched. While during Sikh rule with the Badshahi Masjid being converted into a horse stable and the British used it for residential purposes, we see Neevin Masjid was never touched. Perhaps it was too inconvenient to use for non-ritual activities.

All other mosques in the city have met similar fates, but not this one. Mind you there was another Neevin Masjid in Yakki Darwaza, but that our zealous pious rebuilt to street level, and hence lost it uniqueness. Luckily its name was never changed and its unique features need some description.

Today, this mosque is well maintained because the local population finances its repair and maintenance, and pay the mosque’s prayer leader, who happens to be a local trader and donates his salary to the fund for the mosque. Had it been handed over to the local authorities, it might have been in a very different condition. It easily houses 100 people and serves the locality well, even though they have to descend 25 huge steps to reach the prayer hall.

Now come two issues that need sensible answers. There are others possibilities too, but let us stick to the two most important ones. By no stretch of imagination can any answer be taken as final, but every possibility invariably has merit. Firstly, there is the possibility that it was constructed on the basement of a destroyed Hindu or Jain temple. As Lahore at the time of Mahmud’s invasion had a large Jain population, the possibility of such a scenario cannot be ruled out. The Afghan truly flattened even the Zarathustran ‘Sun Temple’ at Chuna Mandi where today stands the waterworks, as well as all other structures, temples included. Chuna Mandi’s high mound is there because the river at this point was curving outwards, with mud collecting constantly.

If the structure was a Hindu or Jain temple, then the possibility of the mosque being rebuilt on the traditional basement of the temple is very much possible. A well-known former Lahore Museum curator subscribed to this view. Though in his discourse he says that 25 feet is a bit too deep for this possibility, yet “it seems the most plausible”. There is certainly substance to this possibility, but we must further explore and move on to the second possibility.

A few years ago while as a journalist covering the activities of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture as it struggled to save the Shahi Hammam inside Delhi Gate, the archaeologists were amazed that as they dug deep outside, as also inside, they discovered that the foundations of the building were much deeper. The actual structure base stands 12 feet below the outer street level. That is why when you visit it today you will find shops at 12 feet below street level.

This amazing fact brought forth the possibility that the whole walled city was, in the beginning, much lower than the present level. Let me further explain with two real life factual examples. When the 1956 Marshall-led archaeological British-Pakistani expedition worked outside the Dewan-e-Aam, they discovered pottery and other household utensils at a depth of 50 feet. Now this is recorded scientific research. But does it have a meaning for Neevin Masjid?

For this I consulted a top archaeological expert at Cambridge University who just last month gave a talk on his amazing work in the Bannu Valley. He provided a list of possibilities, they being that as old Lahore was ‘curved around’ by the River Ravi, which in old days meandered considerably, the possibility of slush drying to increase the surface height is certainly there. He quoted Harappa and even his work in Bannu. Over 600 years this is very much possible.

But then I argued that almost 150 years ago the river ‘meandered’ a mile away. The learned professor exclaimed: “Exactly, this would leave a mound of increased height as compared to the outer surface”. Now that made sense. But 25 feet over 600 years is a bit too much. His answer stunned me. “Inside the fort the Sir John Marshall expedition discovered that after the 50 feet deep dig, the base of the outer ground had not been reached. This meant that even 4,000 years ago the outer surface was rising”.

He concluded that the river curve provided an ideal spot for a fort and a city. Hence the fort was filled up after the outer walls were built”. This is normal for all fort have to be filled in to have a height to provide a military advantage.

Now over 600 years with over 100 flood slush experiences, surely the outer height could have risen 25 feet. Mind you if the Shahi Hammam has an outer street level 12 feet below the original over just 385 years, with the tradition of water-related structure originally being built at a slight height, then the Neevin Masjid surely being at 25 feet is no miracle at nearly 600 years.

My view is that the original thesis of the learned Lahore Museum scholar did not have the Shahi Hammam experience before him, his probability fitted the prevailing wisdom then. There is so much to learn from archaeological digs inside the walled city. But our tourism experts prefer the glitz and glamour and not what lies below their feet. Even our soil has lesson.

Published in Dawn, July 25th, 2021