On a grey winter afternoon, Aali Masjid, Srinagar’s second-biggest mosque, stood at a forlorn corner next to the historic congregational prayer ground of Eid Gah.The mosque is temporarily closed to worshippers, for a renovation program – under the aegis of the Directorate of Archives, Archaeology and Museums – is underway to augment the 15th-century structure.The works include a clutch of new additions – a khatamband ceiling to its front porch, fresh sheets of corrugated iron (entirely green in colour) on its roof, new wooden eaves, a concretised floor and more.“We had initially planned to restore the traditional birch-bark roofing on the mosque but that couldn’t materialise,” a senior official, familiar with the details of the restoration work, told me. He didn’t specify the reason.He said that the presence of stucco layering and brickwork flooring (on account of previous restoration efforts in 2007) had caused more moisture retention, leading to a process of decay. In order to reverse the erosion, a fresh restoration programme was approved last year, the official said on the condition of anonymity as he wasn’t authorised to speak to the press.However, heritage experts in Kashmir have responded with a sense of alarm to these works, arguing that the new changes, including the extensive use of cement, would speed up the seepage at the historic mosque.“When cement is applied on the stone, the stone hardens, trapping the moisture inside,” Saleem Beg, convener at the Jammu and Kashmir chapter of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (Intach) told me. When the moisture lingers for too long inside the walls “it corrodes the stone, as well as the structure.”Beg also said that adding a new layer to a historical site that wasn’t originally there is against the principles of conservation. The mosque had a coffered vas-talav ceiling which has now been covered with khatamband panels, an interlocking grid of complementary wooden pieces. “Vas-talav was a major architectural element at the site that added a depth to its overall feeling,” Beg said. “That has been decimated.”The new khatamband ceiling on the front porch of the mosque. Photo: Shakir Mir.Of spirits and djinnsLast month, I strolled through Aali Masjid’s outer courtyard, standing under the canopy of an aging plane tree, its gnarled limbs stretching out above me, like an old ascetic leaning his propitious hand forward to offer blessings.Through several reconstructions over centuries, the building has acquired added layers.I pushed open its creaking doors, and stepped into its large prayer hall, where raking beams of light tore through its clerestories, dimly illuminating its cold interiors.The hypostyle hall is a nod to an architectural grammar dating back to the 15th century, when the ruling Shahmirid Muslim dynasty laid the foundation for a number of major mosques in the Valley, including the grand Jamia Masjid, which is nearby.With the Mughals extending their dominion over Kashmir in the late 16th century, the Aali Masjid’s architectural vocabulary began to change.Ornamented with palmette designs, new stone bases were added to its wooden columns, while the stucco walls of its exteriors were recessed with shallow keel-arches.In the mid-20th century, turreted pavilions with cupola domes appeared on its roof, reminiscent of the St. Basil’s Cathedral in Moscow. Thanks to the major repairs supervised by John Thad Avery Jr, an American contractor commissioned by the Archeological Survey of India.“The mosque has been a preserve of the Mirwaiz family in recent history,” explained Zareef Ahmad Zareef, a Kashmiri poet and writer. “Two rival Mirwaizes [one associated with the Jamia Masjid and another with the Khanqah-e-Moula] would read two sermons from two different locations at the same site.”Following the exile of Mirwaiz Yusuf Shah (of the Jamia Masjid) to Pakistan in 1947, the prayers were called off and the mosque fell into decrepitude. “A legend spread that the place has been possessed by spirits and djinns,” Zareef adds.While the existing structure dates back to the 19th century, when a major rebuilding exercise took place under the Afghan rulers of Kashmir, only one small element in the mosque serves as proof of its 15th-century provenance – a limestone block placed right above its mihrab (prayer niche) that has a Farsi inscription, invoking its sponsorship by a Shahmirid sultan, the name of the architect and the date on which it was commissioned.An ornamented stone plinth at the Aali Masjid. Photo: Shakir Mir.The inscription identifies the sultan as Hassan Shah, tenth in the line of royal succession. Yet it is not him that the mosque is named after.It’s Ali Mardan Khan, the Mughal governor of Kashmir in the 17th century, who oversaw extensive repairs and rebuilding works at the mosque.The association of this name, it turns out, made the mosque’s historicity more special than I had previously expected.Khan’s enlistment in the Mughal empire is itself a fascinating affair.An emperor’s Persian guestFormerly a governor of Kandahar under the Safavid Shahs of Iran, Khan renounced his titles (he felt a threat to his life after the Shah allegedly contrived embezzlement charges against him) and rode his caravan through the arid Afghan countryside, crossing into the neighbouring Mughal empire in 1638 CE, ruled at that time by emperor Shah Jahan.In return for ceding Kandahar to the Mughals, Shah Jahan took him under his wing and “granted [him] the highest rank of 7,000/7,000 and the title of Amir-ul Umara and Yar-i Wafadar,” writes historian Muhammad Afzal Khan.Control over Afghan territory wasn’t the only benefit that accrued to Shah Jahan in the wake of Khan’s arrival. It was his aptitude for architecture and building also.He impressed the Mughals, for instance, by restoring an old Tughluq-era canal that irrigated the pleasure gardens of Shahjahanabad (old Delhi).While leading the military campaigns to Balkh and Badakhshan in 1646 CE, Shah Jahan came across a four-laned vaulted bazaar in Peshawar constructed by Khan. With its squinches honeycombed with elegant muqarnas, the structure resembled the similar bazaars found across the Safavid Iran.So enthralled was the Mughal emperor with its splendour that he “had its design (tarah) sent to Makramat Khan, then chief overseer of the construction of the palace of Shahjahanabad, to be copied,” writes art historian Ebba Koch.The plan was adopted (near Red Fort) in Delhi in the Mughal context and the new structure came to be called Chhatta Chowk Bazaar, today’s Meena Bazaar.Another Mughal-era mosque sitting atop the craggy hills of the Samahni valley in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir features a delicate coat of kalib kari (shallow muqarnas made of moulded plaster) overhanging its soffit – a decorative treatment harkening back to the cistern of the Ganj Ali Khan complex at Kerman in Iran, which was built by Khan’s father, a senior functionary in the Safavid court.Renovation work inside the prayer hall of the mosque. Photo: Shakir Mir.Though the details about its patronage are unknown, the Mughal ruins of the Samahni valley fall along the same route that connects Kashmir with the Indian plains, where at least seven serais (resthouses) were established by Khan.Aali Masjid’s unique porticoIt goes without saying that having introduced to the Mughal court a host of new architectural traditions of Iranian provenance, Khan’s intervention at Aali Masjid would also have been more than just prosaic.That unconventionality is exemplified by the columned portico of the Aali Masjid that is also known in Mughal parlance as dalan (where the controversial khatamband work is currently going on.)Historian Hakim Sameer Hamdani has noticed what he calls the “conspicuous absence” of dalan as a feature in pre-Mughal buildings in Kashmir.The style made an appearance, he argues, only by the 17th century around the time of Shah Jahan, with Mughal architects reworking the Iranian talar porch into the distinct Indian dalan that’s also seen at many other sites in Kashmir, especially the pleasure gardens of Shalimar and Cheshmeh-Shahi.This complex history behind the Aali Masjid is the reason why the recent efforts to upgrade the mosque have been dogged by concerns from heritage conservators.“For more than three decades, the mosque has remained shuttered for various reasons,” Beg told me, referring to Intach’s 2007 conservation drive that finally led to its reopening. “The ceiling had collapsed and water had pooled inside. The dampness had scaled its walls and wooden columns.”Beg said that Intach had removed the wooden floor in the halls and added porous bricks that would allow air to pass through and dry out the dampness. “The seepage will return as the whole area has a higher water table,” he added.However, the official overseeing the renovation work dismissed these concerns as frivolous, arguing that the executing agency, the public works (roads and buildings) department, has not used the “conventional” construction material. “Also, how is using khatamband amounting to adding another layer?” he asked, adding: “The techniques of khatamband and vas-talav are nearly synonymous.”Shakir Mir is an independent journalist based in Srinagar. His work is located at the intersection of conflict, politics, history and memory.