Funded largely by Abdur Rahim Osman, a Kutchi Memon shipping merchant, and completed in 1926. Nakhoda means mariner. The gateway copies Akbar's tomb at Sikandra, and the two minarets rise 46 metres over a neighbourhood of two-storey shopfronts.
It holds around ten thousand people. The prayer hall is plain, which is the intention; the sandstone and the domes do the work outside.
Zakaria Street below it is the reason many people come. Through Ramadan the lane runs on charcoal from late afternoon: haleem, suta kebab, shami, phirni in clay bowls, and the sheermal and bakarkhani that only appear properly in this quarter.
Non-Muslim visitors are generally welcome outside prayer times. Dress modestly, and ask before going up.
What the guidebook leaves out
Royal India Hotel is around the corner and has been doing the same mutton biryani since 1905. It is not a hotel.
