I don’t rank the squish of pigeon poop beneath my shoeless feet as an agreeable travel experience. Nor is squeezing up a staircase in a space so tight I have to engage in sweaty tangos with those descending.
The cause is worth it, though. What traveller can resist a commanding view, or the lure of the unusual? Not me, anyway. So when I see a battered sign that says I can ascend one of the minarets of Delhi’s Jama Masjid, or Friday Mosque, I don’t let pesky pigeons put me off.
In mosques, only a muezzin climbs the minaret to proclaim the call to prayer and even then, not often in this modern age when the mosque relies on loudspeakers. This is something almost unique, and Friday Mosque couldn’t be a better mosque to do it in.
Not many places let you clamber onto the roofs of significant monuments either, and this monument, completed in 1656 under Shah Jahan at the peak of the Mughal Empire, is a corker. One of India’s largest and most important mosques, it fuses Persian and Hindu architectural influences and houses relics of the prophet Muhammad.
I pick my way past a sea of temporarily abandoned shoes at its ornamental gateway and enter a vast courtyard, in which, at festival times, 25,000 people assemble to pray. Locals sit on patterned Kashmir carpets under its colonnades, cracking peanuts and gazing towards the Red Fort.
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The ornate complex of red sandstone inlaid with white marble attracts abundant visitors, and none could miss the two giant minarets that rise on either side of the prayer hall like rockets on a launch pad.
Most visitors, however, don’t realise they can climb inside one of them up to the dainty pavilion at its summit. Or maybe they don’t dare because this is a terrifying treat.
The first stage is an ascent to the prayer hall’s roof on steps so steep I have to haul myself upwards using handrails.
Just being elevated to roof level provides a different take on this mosque. Three white domes trimmed with black stripes bulge like tethered hot-air balloons. I have to tip back my neck to admire the minarets, which seem to lean against Delhi’s heavy grey skies.
I tiptoe over the pigeon poop and into the minaret’s narrow doorway. Corkscrewing steps have a rough red surface like an old hide. Walls are behind-the-scenes rough. There’s no longer any space for handrails.
About halfway up in the sweltering humidity, as I push against people coming down in ways that are far too intimate, I begin to think this is a mistake, but plod on. The staircase emerges onto a narrow platform that has barely a toehold.
A sign in several scripts I can’t decipher appears to be a warning. Certainly, if anyone stepped incautiously backwards, they would fall down the spiral staircase like a stunt actor. We are, though, protected from falling outwards by the pavilion’s scalloped arches and metal screens.
From 40 metres up, Friday Mosque is laid out like an architect’s plan. Vertigo sufferers won’t be happy. The flocks of pigeons now swoop below. Beyond is the Red Fort in one direction and the jumble of Old Delhi in the other.
Old Delhi’s crush and crowd – porters hauling boxes and scrums of cycle-rickshaws that are so alarming at street level – seem almost balletic from this height. There’s no escaping the ceaseless splutter of motorbikes and honking of horns, however. They seem to mimic my heart, set thumping by the climb and height and thrill of the view.
THE DETAILS
FlyMalaysia Airlines flies to Delhi via Kuala Lumpur. See malaysiaairlines.com
TourLuxury Gold’s 18-day Imperial Rajasthan tour spends two days in Delhi and includes a visit to Jama Masjid. It has regular departures between September 2026 and March 2027. From $11,749 a person, twin share. See luxurygold.com
SeeJama Masjid is open to non-Muslim visitors daily from 8am to sunset. Arms and legs must be covered and shoes removed. Entry INR400 ($6), minaret ascent INR100. See delhitourism.gov.in
The writer travelled courtesy of Luxury Gold and Malaysia Airlines.