Mahabat Maqbara

From the mid-18th century Junagadh, in Kathiawar, was ruled by the Babi family: Sher Khan Babi, the last Mughal faujdar (military governor) of the Sorath region, made himself independent there and took the title of Nawab Bahadur Khan³. Muhammad Mahabat Khan came to the throne in 1851, at about fourteen, after the death of his elder brother^3,4. His mother’s faction controlled him in his early years, until he escaped with his brother-in-law Shaikh Baha-ud-din to the protection of a British political officer⁴. Baha-ud-din later served as his vizier³. Mahabat Khanji attended the Imperial Darbar at Delhi in 1877 and died on 29 September 1882; his son Bahadur Khanji succeeded him³.

Gujarat Tourism and India’s Ministry of Tourism say that Mahabat Khanji began the mausoleum in 1878 and that it was finished in 1892 under Bahadur Khanji^1,2. Watson’s official Statistical Account of Junagadh, published in 1884, reported that a mausoleum and a mosque in memory of the late Nawab were being built “at a very large expense”³. The tomb holds Mahabat Khanji’s grave¹. North of it stands a second mausoleum, the Bahauddin Maqbara or Vizier’s Maqbara, which the vizier Shaikh Bahauddin Husain Bhar built in 1891-1896¹. Both tombs stand a few steps from the town’s Jama Masjid¹.

The two tombs combine Indo-Islamic, Gothic and European forms¹. Their façades and arches are carved inside and out and have a yellowish light-brown finish, with onion-shaped domes, French windows, sculpture, marble columns and tracery, and marble jalis (pierced screens)¹. One of the tombs has four minarets, each with a staircase winding around its outside¹. The neighbouring Jama Masjid follows the same style, with onion domes and minarets ringed by external spiral stairs¹.

The Ministry of Tourism mentions a large silver door at the entrance, and describes the Nawab’s tomb as having several chambers with carved decoration, lit through lattice windows¹. Mahabat Khanji’s grave lies inside¹.