Place · timber mosque · Pakistan
Chaqchan Mosque, Khaplu
Founded in 1370 and attached by tradition to Sayyid Alī Hamadānī, the Kubrawi missionary credited with the conversion of Baltistan and of Kashmir. The name means miraculous. What makes it remarkable is its form: tiered timber roofs, carved wooden pillars and a verandah, with almost nothing of the arch-and-dome vocabulary that a mosque of that date would have anywhere to the west. It is said to have replaced a Buddhist establishment on the same ground.
- Function
- Sacred site & pilgrimage
- Confidence
- Established / referenced
- Location
- 35.156, 76.331
Worth knowing
The mosque is built like a Tibetan temple because the carpenters who raised it had been building gompas — so Islam arrives in Baltistan in the architectural language of the religion it replaced, and the same is true of Kashmir's wooden mosques.
Connections (2)
- Silsila lineageShah-e-Hamadan, Srinagar
Both are attached to Sayyid Alī Hamadānī, the Kubrawi missionary credited with the conversion of Kashmir and of Baltistan in the fourteenth century, and both are built the same way. The Khanqah-e-Moula at Srinagar and Chaqchan at Khaplu are timber buildings with tiered roofs, carved pillars and verandahs, with almost nothing of the arch-and-dome vocabulary a mosque of that date would have further west. Islam arrived in both valleys in the architectural language of the religion it replaced, because the carpenters were the same carpenters.
- Site adjacencyKhaplu Palace (Yabgo Khar)
The palace and the mosque stand within a few hundred metres at Khaplu and are built by the same tradition of carpenters. Chaqchan was founded in 1370, at the conversion of Baltistan, with tiered timber roofs and carved pillars that owe nothing to the arch-and-dome mosque of the Persianate world; the Yabgo palace of about 1840 uses the same joinery vocabulary for a princely residence five centuries later. The continuity of Balti woodwork across the change of religion is visible in one short walk.
On these journeys
Sources
Wikipedia, “Chaqchan Mosque”. Gilgit-Baltistan department of archaeology records; Aga Khan Cultural Service Pakistan documentation of Baltistan's timber mosques.
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