The Jama Masjid was begun by Nawab Muhammad Ali Shah in 1839 and intended to outdo the great Friday Mosques of Delhi and Agra. He died before it was completed in 1845, and the mosque has the slightly stilled grandeur of a building whose patron never lived to see it. Three large yellow-stone domes top a long colonnaded prayer hall; two tall minarets flank the central iwan; the courtyard in front is reached through a long staircase that climbs over a high plinth.
Non-Muslims are generally welcome outside prayer times — cover shoulders, remove shoes, and ask before entering the main hall. It is a working congregational mosque, not a museum: the experience is busy, sociable, and a useful counterweight to the more touristed imambaras nearby.