History

The Mosque was built in Northbridge on the corner of William Street and Robinson Street. At the time this was a well-to-do area, unlike the marginal position occupied by the earlier Adelaide Mosque begun in 1889. The land was located a few blocks away from the new Busy Bee Arcade (Perth’s first shopping arcade constructed in 1894 on the corner of James Street and William Street), where Punjabi Indian Hoffiz Mohammed Hayat (a trustee of the mosque together with Musakhan in 1906) managed his Drapery Establishment. The parcel of land comprised 4 lots , each measuring 33 x 83ft. The details of the land purchase and the building costs were recorded by Musakhan in the annual report. A plan and specification was attributed to Din Muhammad, architect, who was paid the balance of fees of £15.

Urban and Architectural

Perth Mosque is an urban mosque located in Perth, Western Australia. It is part of a busy street in Northbridge close to the city centre. its architecture is inspired by the architecture of mosques in the Indian subcontinent. The façade of the Perth mosque  is its most prominent feature. While no documentation exist to trace the decisions that determined the mosque's initial design, stylistic study clearly shows copying of late Mughal architecture from the Indian subcontinent. This time has been referred to as a "golden age," particularly during Shah Jahan (r. 1628-1658), whose Mughal emperor lineage may be traced back to Genghis Khan and Timur (or Tamerlane, founders of the Mongol and Timurid empires, respectively. Timurid and Uzbek forms and motifs, impacted by the legacy of Persian architecture and gardens, affected the growth of Mughal architecture, which melded with Hindu construction traditions in the crucible of the Mughal Empire.

Description

Perth mosque is not only the city’s oldest mosque - built in 1901 - but also its most popular one. Located in the city center, on one of its busiest streets, this mosque is not only frequented by local Muslims belonging to a plethora of nationalities, but also by tourists from around the world, due to its central location. The mosque hosts all five daily prayers and Jumu’ah prayers on Fridays as well as Eid prayers. It has separate prayer and wudhu sections for both males and females.

References

Finding Mosques in Perth (halaltrip.com)

Bartsch “Building Identity in the Colonial City,” 247-270. 

The total cost for the land purchase was £680. in 1904. Musakhan, The Mohammaden Mosque of Perth, 6

Stephen F. Dale, The Muslim Empires of the Ottomans, Safavids and Mughals (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 47. Radhey Shyman Chaurasia defines a golden age of Mughal architecture under the emperors Akbar, Jahangir and Shah Jhan in History of Medieval India: From 1000 A.D. to 1707 A.D. (New Delhi: Atlantic Publishers, 2002), 327. Ram Nath highlights the reign of Shah Jahan as a golden age in the History of Decorative Art in Mughal Architecture (Motilal Banarsidass, 1976), 9; and more recently Ebba Koch, Mughal Art and Imperial Ideology (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 203-228