My normal way of seeing a city’s unknown monuments is to hire a rickshaw/auto and ask them to take me to places they know but aren’t frequented by tourists. I have always had great results with this method.
While exploring Shahjahanabad for my book, I had a fixed rickshawwala who entered into the spirit of my search . I would call and tell him I am coming a day before and give him a list of places I wanted to visit he would do find out the locations for me.
I then come home and research the details of those places.
IN AGra, I did the same and my only brief to the rickshaw wala was take me to old places. He must have thought me crazy but he complied.
AFter crossing over the ghat he took me one area, called Moti Bagh. I could see red sandstone and a huge dome peeping out from far.
To my horror I found that an old Mughal era mosque (the imam told me its Jahangiri) had been plastered with modern tiles. “Its easy to maintain” they said. Apparently they don’t get any grants to mantain the structure so rely on donations.
It was quite a shock for me to see red sandstone and typical niches covered with tiles.
This mosque is called the Moti Bagh and was built in the reign of Shah jahan.
The other mosques are
Jami Masjid built buy Jahanara Begum
and four mosques built in four katras of Mumtazabad were constructed during the reign of Shahjahan.
Masjid Moti Bagh is located east of the tomb of I’timad-ud Daulah on the east bank of the river in the area which was a suburb of the Mughal city.
Reference : TOMBS AND MOSQUES IN THE MUGHAL CITY OF AGRA Author(s): Salim Javed Akhtar
Source: Proceedings of the Indian History Congress , 2009-2010
