Jama Masjid Ahmedabad (Amdavad)

Built by Ahmed Shah in 1423, the massive Jama Masjid ranks as one of India’s most beautiful mosques. Demolished Hindu and Jain temples provided the building materials, and the mosque displays some architectural fusion with these religions, notably in the lotus-like carving of some domes, which are supported by the prayer hall’s 260 columns. The two ‘shaking’ minarets lost half their height in the great earthquake of 1819; their lower portions still flank the prayer hall’s central portico.