Fazl Mosque

Fazl Mosque was built between 1925 and 1926 to designs by TH Mawson and Sons, with JH Mawson as lead architect, for the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. The mosque is a steel-framed concrete structure with brick infill panels, finished in painted stucco.

The building has a rectangular plan, consisting of a single prayer hall with an inserted entrance vestibule on the north-west side and a mehrab niche in the centre of the opposing wall, oriented towards Mecca. The mosque’s construction was slightly off the correct direction of the Qibla, so the prayer direction within the building has been reoriented, as shown by the prayer lines which are not aligned with the building plan.

The exterior is stucco rendered and divided into equal bays by five pairs of steel-framed concrete piers. A green dome with a gold finial sits on a buttressed rectangular base above the entrance. The main prayer hall is 5.4 metres high, and the apex of the dome reaches 10 metres. Small cupola minarets with green ogee domes and gold finials mark the corners of the hall, although they have been slightly altered from their original form. The detailing is restrained, with the only applied decoration being stucco arcading above the hall’s windows and the base of the dome, creating a crenelated effect. Tall, narrow windows with round arches, now uPVC replacements, light the hall, while five shortened arched windows are set into the four sides of the square dome base.

The north-west facing elevation features a large central door surround with an arched inset bearing a painted Quranic inscription (72:19) and its English translation. Carved stone tablets, added later, are positioned either side of the doors: one in English and one in Urdu, recording the message delivered by Mirza Bashir-Ud-Din Mahmud Ahmad at the 19 October 1924 foundation laying ceremony. The rear elevation has a pair of windows flanking the projecting mehrab niche, which includes original stone tablets bearing the same inscription as the entrance plaques (English on top, Urdu below). The side elevations both have four narrow windows with rounded arches, evenly spaced between the concrete piers. A lean-to uPVC structure has been built against the east side of the south-west wall, and a new door has been inserted into the hall.

The interior has plain, white rendered walls. Turquoise highlights the mehrab niche on the back wall. Concrete piers support structural concrete cross beams with simple stepped detailing where they meet, and a moulded cornice runs beneath the windows, under the dome. A modern uPVC vestibule has been inserted on the north-west side of the hall.