With the villagers taking charge of its day-to-day maintenance, the 200-year-old Sair mosque in the Galyat belt is fast losing its traditional look
By Moeed Ur Rehman
The entire Galyat belt – comprising Nathia Gali, Dunga Gali, Changla Gali, Bara Gali, Kooza Gali, Khaira Gali – and the adjoining beautiful villages are famous for their natural beauty and simple people. The belt is known to be the preserver of old traditions and buildings. Some hundred-year-old buildings can be found in their original form here, the Sair mosque being one.
Built about 200 years ago on top of a small hill, the Sair mosque is located in union council Nagri, (district Abbottabad), about 90km Northwest of Islamabad. The Mehmood Khani tribe in the 18th century dominated the area and it was this tribe which built the mosque.
Time passed by and the condition of the mosque started deteriorating with the villagers taking charge of the day-to-day maintenance. Luckily, they did not temper with the original structure of the mosque. Although Sair has lost its original roof; the villagers have replaced its kacha rooftop (Bulli in the vernacular) with a peculiar roof design for many villages in the north, especially Hazara division – to iron sheets in order to protect it from seasonal snowfall. However, the material of the walls and original pine tree heavy doors with kanda kari (carving) still exist.
The mosque epitomises the architecture of those times when the construction was done with the help of wood, mud, dry grass and stone. And, interestingly, during the 2005 earthquake the mosque was not damaged as it had been built with quake-proof material.
The skeleton of the building was covered with a traditional wall built with stones and parallel wooden beams and wooden carved verandas. The wall constructed around the building with heavy stone clearly shows the strength of the people of that time who worked with these heavy stones from the Haroo stream. A-shape design of the two aisles of the building and the Kurri, a long beam in the centre of the roof building an open-air veranda, has been borrowed from the traditional village structures.
The wooden, carved main door of the prayer hall is a unique piece. Although the villagers without knowing the value of the antique painted the entire door, the carving in Persian can be seen clearly, which shows that the mosque was built in the year 1791 AD by Sardar Mehmood Khan. Traditional stone shelves are used by villagers to keep their praying accessories such as caps, prayer rugs and holy books.
Sardar Mohammad Arshad, Nazim of the area, is of the view that Sair as well as the mosque of Buni Pandi (another old mosque in the area), located in the main market of Nagri, should be taken over by the Archaeology department as these are relics and should be preserved before they lose their original shape.
However, most of the initial construction and design is fast disappearing as the committee of local villagers has started work on the building. “We are planning to expand the building as it does not fulfil our requirements,” says Sardar Irshad, a member of the committee.