Taj-ul-Masjid Madhya Pradesh & Chhattisgarh

Bhopal’s third female ruler, Shah Jahan Begum, wanted to create the largest mosque in the world, so in 1877 she set about building the Taj-ul-Masjid. Incomplete at the time of her death in 1901, it was finally finished in the 1980s. Fortresslike pink walls surround a 99-sq-metre courtyard and a prayer hall with 27 scalloped ceiling domes and three gleaming eggshell-like domes on top, all overlooked by two towering minarets. Try to make the dawn azan (Muslim call to prayer), when hundreds of worshippers descend on the place. An autorickshaw from Hamidia Rd costs ₹40. The entrance is from the south side.