The New Burhani Masjid sits on the site of the original Buhani mosque, which was a very large white complex overlooking the Old Port, built in 1901-3.

The original mosque was built in Neo-Fatimide style. it was a three-story building; men gather in the wide main prayer hall on the first floor while women convene on the higher floors. Women may hear and follow religious ceremony and sermons from the floors above thanks to the void left in the centre of the prayer hall. The mosque was a sizable white, rectangular mosque surrounded by paved terrace. It had a flat roof and an even more remarkable mihrab, which projected totally out of the “qibla” wall and was accessible from the outside through stairs and a wooden entrance door, complimented by the odd sequence of an open and covered courtyard. On the eastern side of the structure was the minaret located.

However, this mosque was razed to the ground in 1984 and was replaced by an angular and imposing building, that was allegedly modelled on an ancient mosque in Sana‘a, Yemen, a design choice that aimed unify disparate elements of the Bohra diaspora, which includes a large number of Yemeni Bohras.