Harking Back: 340-year-old Saleh Kamboh mosque saved by locals

As you enter Lahore’s walled city’s Mochi Gate and head towards Mohallah Shian, a lane turns inwards to what is known as Khoya Bazaar. On this is a ‘Kucha Chagtah’. Right in front is a mosque that was once famed as the ‘most spectacular in the entire city’.

The name of this mosque is Saleh Kamboh Mosque, known locally as ‘Chinianwali Maseet’, and the reason being that it has the most extraordinary marble inlaid with precious stones in tile form, known as ‘kashi kari’. In its days its architecture, decoration and marble floral inlaid designs were famous.

Noor Ahmed Chishti in his ‘Tehkiqat—Chishti’ describes the tastefully decorated mosque as the pride of Lahore and its culture. He goes on to say: “It is as spectacular as the mosque of Wazir Khan, but on a smaller scale and much more beautiful”. As Chishti lived nearby in Kucha Chabakswaran, he can be accused of prejudice. But then Kanhiya Lal also describes its beauty as “unmatched”. Surely there was much more to this place and the person after whom it has been named.

For that matter the very name Kamboh is important in our ancient history, and it was while reading the ‘Mahabharata’ and the description of ‘The Battle of Dasanrajnah’ that I first heard of the name Kamboh. So let us start the story of the Kamboh from the beginning. The ‘Mahabharata’ when describing the participants of that great battle fought on the banks of the River Ravi at Mahmood Booti, for trade rights on the river, described the Kamboh as a great warrior tribe, whose armies fought for both the Pandavas and the Kauravas. Sounds so familiar these days given our political psyche.

But then the location of their origin is given as spread on both sides of the Hindukush Mountains, spreading towards Iran and the Fergana region. In the famous work of Panini the Kamboh are mentioned as pure Kshatriya, a warrior class, who belonged to a higher caste but had refused to obey the dictates of the Brahmin priests.

One analysis claims they were originally Brahmin by caste, but demoted to Kshatriya by the priests. It seems this never bothered them. This makes them an interesting tribe, fierce yet diplomatic and free from any ‘Imagined Narrative’. In another portion of the Mahabharata they are said to have lived in Gandhara. One of the most interesting reference is in the Asoka pillars who describes them as independent of the Mauryan kingdom having ‘their own Kamboh area’.

But back to present times, the Kamboh are today Hindu, Muslim and Sikh, a fair spread among the various belief systems. They are located in the Punjab spreading right up to the Hindukush region. Today in Pakistan they are mostly found in Sahiwal and Okara. Let us now describe just who Mohammad Saleh Kamboh was on whose name this ‘once famous’ mosque exists. A board outside claims that the conservation has been undertaken by the traders of the area headed by Haji Ziauddin Butt. His name is written below a short history of the mosque. A reasonable effort where no plaque has reached so far.

My younger brother Karim, who knows the area well, visited the mosque twice. His visit further reinforced my belief that when it comes to the poor areas of the once-walled city, the people themselves have to do the job. Neighbours told that the traders had promised to fund the effort, and after the relevant authority failed to respond, they went for it themselves. So for better or for the worse, they did the job themselves, irrespective of its quality.

Muhammad Saleh Kamboh was the son of Mir Abdullah Kamboh, a ‘Mushkin Kalam’, or a scholar and writer. His eldest son was Sheikh Inayat Ullah Kamboh, a historian and scholar. His younger brother Muhammad Saleh Kamboh, was a historian in the court of the Mughal emperor Shah Jehan and was a teacher of Aurangzeb. He worked as a ‘Shahi Dewan’ of the Governor of Lahore and lived inside Mochi Gate. There is a vague reference to its location, but no exact address.

In the Mughal list of ‘Mansabdars’, Muhammad Saleh is shown as a commander of 500 horsemen. So here we have a soldier, a scholar and a teacher. But soldier that he was he is shown in the records as being the commander of a Mughal fleet fighting rebels in the Bay of Bengal. It was during this naval posting that he completed his epic work ‘Amal-e-Saleh’ in 1659 AD. By this time, just for perspective, the famous Wazir Khan Mosque had been completed in 1641 AD. So the mosque named after Saleh Kamboh was built after his death in 1675 AD. Some evidence states that it was built in 1680. So today in 2022 the mosque is well over 340 years old.

After his death, most probably in Delhi, his body was brought to Lahore and buried outside the walled city in a huge garden next to his elder brother Inayat Ullah Kamboh in a domed structure called ‘Gumbad-e-Kambohan’. In its day it was a beautiful structure decorated with exquisite marble tablets with inlaid floral designs. Its location is to the north of the current Pakistan Railway Headquarters. One source, however, claims it next to the shrine of Hazrat Ali Rangrez.

But what we do know is that the one to the north of the railway office had its decorated marble removed during the Sikh era for use at other places, and then its graves were flattened. When the British came and took over, this structure became the residence of the British official named Seymour Sahib Bahadar. After some time it was handed over to a church, who eventually turned it into a school. That school is still running in the domed structure which can be seen from across Empress Road.

Muhammad Saleh Kamboh was an accomplished poet and used the pen name Kashfi when writing in Persian, and when writing in Hindi he used the name Subhan. One account states that he was an accomplished classical singer too. It is sad that very few today know about these accomplished brothers of Lahore, who like their amazing forefathers were also soldiers and scholars.

One source claims that the Emperor Aurangzeb took a special interest in the completion of this mosque. The task of the conservation of this unique mosque had to be undertaken by the traders in the local bazaar, after its condition had reached a point that its collapse seemed inevitable. All calls for assistance from the ‘authority’ responsible for conserving the old ‘walled’ city failed.

But then we also learn from local residents that there is some property dispute over the mosque’s ownership. It would be in the best interest of this structure that some ‘authority’ moves to clarify how this conservation should have been undertaken. Yes floral ceramic tiles look clean and flashy. The inner dome also has tiles where once delicate floral paintwork existed. ‘Kashi Kari’ is a different ballgame. It originally had marble with floral inlays. For the traders of the area that was surely a tall ask. But then at least they did respond. They also got a place to pray near their work places, whereas before it was locked.

There are hundreds of such places inside the old ‘walled’ city worth saving. But then fashionable tourists do not go there. To expect the people of the area to every time fend for themselves is a bit too much. Lahore surely needs special assistance, which means that conservation proposals should not be lost in the cobwebs of bureaucratic hiding places. It is time to wake up.