Adhai Din ka Jhopra

Not too far from dargah in Ajmer is a dilapidated but a beautiful structure called Adhai Din ka Jhopra that literally means ‘two-and-a-half-day hut’. According to different accounts, this structure was originally a Sanskrit college in a Jain or a Vaishnav temple. Muslim rulers during the time of Qutubuddin Aibak—the first sultan of Delhi—converted it into a mosque by adding seven arches in front of the original structure. This makes this structure contemporary to the mosque at the Qutub Minar complex in Delhi. In fact, if you look closely you would see the resemblance, with tall arches covered with Quranic verses carved in stone. These arches of the mosque were supposed to have been erected in two and a half days and hence the name of the place. Another theory says that this mosque hosts a two-and-a-half-day fair and hence the name, but no one really knows how this name came. You have to take a steep flight of stairs to reach Adhai Din ka Jhopra. Once you reach the top, you can see the seven arches looking at you. Inside the assembly hall there is an array of stone pillars with decorative carvings on them, taken from the Jain and Hindu temples—another similarity with the Quwwat-ul Islam mosque at Qutub Minar. There is a mihrab in white. Not many tourists visit this monument, but there are lots of locals who visit Adhai Din ka Jhopra.