Ahmedabad, a city celebrated for its Indo-Saracenic architectural heritage, houses one of the most intriguing structural enigmas in the world: the Jhulta Minar, or the Shaking Minarets. Located within the Sidi Bashir Mosque complex near the Sarangpur Darwaja, these 15th-century towers have stood for over five centuries, baffling architects, engineers, and historians with their ability to vibrate in tandem despite being physically separated.
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| Shaking minarets, Ahmedabad, GJ ahmedabadtourism.in |
Historical Origins
The minarets are part of the Sidi Bashir Mosque, believed to have been constructed in 1452 AD. Historical accounts credit the construction to Sidi Bashir, a devoted slave of Sultan Ahmed Shah, the founder of Ahmedabad. Others attribute the design to Malik Sarang, a noble in the court of Mahmud Begada. While the main body of the mosque was largely destroyed during the Maratha-Mughal conflicts of the 18th century, the two central minarets and the connecting arched gateway survived, standing as a testament to the sophisticated engineering of the Gujarat Sultanate.
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| Sidi Bashir Mosque, Ahmedabad maverickonthemove.wordpress.com |
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| Shaking minarets, Ahmedabad,. gujarattourism.com |
Above image: Located within close proximity to the city’s railway station, these minarets are part of the Sidi Bashir Mosque of Ahmedabad.If one is tampered or nudged,the other literally shakes and trembles after a gap of a few seconds. Hence they are called Shaking Minarets,a structural engineering wonder. Each minaret is about 70 metres tall adorned with carved stone balconies...........
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| Sidi Bashir Mosque, Ahmedabad maverickonthemove.wordpress.com |
Architectural Features and Design
The minarets are masterclasses in stone craftsmanship. Standing approximately three stories tall, they feature intricately carved stone balconies and internal spiral staircases. Architecturally, they represent the peak of the Gujarat style, where Islamic structural forms merged with local Hindu and Jain decorative motifs.
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| Shaking Minarets Sidi Bashir Mosque, travfoodie.com |
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| Shaking Minarets Sidi Bashir Mosque, Ahmedabad . maverickonthemove.wordpress.com |
The most striking features are their height and slender configuration, adorned with incorporated sculptural plasticity which later inspired colonial architects. British architect and author of Indo-Saracenic style Robert Chisholm when he designed the Nyay Mandir in Baroda, apparently drew inspiration from these stylized towers-minarets for his own designs, Modern contemporaries viewed that such modern adaptations with hightec backup often lacked the refined "plasticity" archiectural finesse and detail found in the originals at Sidi Bashir.
The Mystery of the Vibration
The "quivering mystery" lies in a phenomenon known as resonance. When a gentle push is applied to the upper levels of one minaret, the vibrations are transmitted to the other minaret within a few seconds. Remarkably, the connecting horizontal passage between the two remains entirely stationary and vibration-free.
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| Shaking Jhulta Minar travfoodie.com |
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| Shaking Jhulta Minar wanderon.in |
Above image: What the experts cannot understand the structural dynamics of the minarets. When one minaret is shaken or tampered, the other begins to vibrate, though the connecting passage between the two remains vibration-free; what causes this vibration is unknown. The two well-known pairs of Shaking Minarets in Ahmedabad, are located separately, one is right across the Sarangpur Darwaja and the other being near the Kalupur Railway Station Area. The one near Sarangpur Darwaja is within the vicinity of the Sidi Bashir Mosque built in 1452 AD by Sidi Bashir, a slave of Sultan Ahmed Shah............
Modern engineers speculate that the minarets are designed with a specific flexibility in their foundations or through the use of layered internal stone "couplers" that allow for a transfer of energy without stressing the main arch. However, the exact mechanism remains unproven. During the British Raj, intrigued engineers dismantled one set of shaking minarets at the Kalupur Railway Station to study the internal design. To their frustration, they could neither unravel the secret nor reassemble the minaret in its original functional state, leaving that pair permanently damaged.
Present Status and Conservation
Today, the Jhulta Minar is a protected monument under the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). Due to the structural sensitivity of the towers and the fear of long-term damage from seismic stress or human interference, the public is no longer allowed to climb the minarets, and official "shaking" demonstrations have been discontinued.
The site remains a major draw for tourists and heritage lovers, standing as a "structural engineering wonder" that challenges the limits of modern architectural understanding. It serves as a reminder that the medieval builders of Gujarat possessed a profound knowledge of physics and material science that was, in some ways, far ahead of its time.
https://travfoodie.com/jhulta-minar-ahmedabad-still-an-unresolved-mystery
