HUJRA OF MIR MAHDI
OLDEST EXTANT MONUMENT IN LAHORE

A relic of Syed Mubarak Shah days

The year is 1421. Historians report that there was not a single person left alive in Lahore. Syed Mubarak Shah had seized control of the reign of power in Delhi. In 1398 Jasrat Ghakkhar had taken control of Lahore, and Sayyid Mubarak Shah himself came from Delhi, and routed him out. There was a need to rebuild the city as it was said that only OWLS inhabited Lahore. A programme of reconstruction was started and buildings came up, and people from all over the region, were invited to inhabit Lahore, and make it a city again.

The area of Miran de Kohi is a very ancient area of Lahore. It is said that the Saint Hussain Zanjani, preceded Hazrat Ali Hujveri (Data Darbar) here in Lahore. In Mughal times we have the magnificent mausoleum of Sultan Mumtaz Shikoh, son of Prince Dara Shikoh, who was buried in the garden of his mother. Nadira Begum is herself buried in the Mausoleum of Hazrat Mian Meer in Lahore, in a garden, which preceded the Saint himself.
In Mughal times, the area was very old, and occupied by some unknown person, by the name of Mir Mahdi, and it was known as Hujra of Mir Mahdi. Judge Muhammed Latif the historian of Lahore, calls it by this very name in his book. But what is really old in that area?
The IDGAH obviously, which is the oldest extant Muslim monument of Lahore.

We do not know its present condition but in the 1950s it was still there. A masjid to say the IDD prayers. It had all the aesthetics of 15th century, perhaps even earlier. The Kalma was there on it with a roundrel  of calligraphy in stucco. It was worth preserving in all its scale. There were other Idgahs of earlier period. One was in the village Baini Dhilwan near the Indian border, and the other near the Masjid Shaheedganj Lahore. But the officials are in no mood to preserve all this. Not even a NGO does it. All the NGOS can do is to destroy our identity. No relief in site. At least we can document it.