Infrastructure

The construction of the mosque was carried out by specialists gathered from all over Pakistan and India: master masons from Rajhistan, India, craftsmen from Multan for the glazed tile, mosaic and woodwork, and painters and calligraphers from Karachi. Workshops were set up to train craftsmen in skills that had originally been passed from father to son. The mosque's design is a mix of Islamic styles, using rare and traditional materials such as ivory, teak, and onyx, along with industrial elements like terrazzo and artificial stone facing. Broadly eclectic in their use of sources, the builders borrowed stylistic elements from nearby Lahore, as well as Iran, Spain and Turkey, and combined them with Western colonial elements of the 1940s.