The Hazratbal Mosque was built from 1968 to 1979 and is located in Srinagar in the Kashmir region of the Jammu & Kashmir state of India. The mosque is not only known as the Hazratbal Mosque, but also the Assar-E-Sharief Mosque, the Madinat-Us-Sani Mosque, the Dargah Sharief Mosque and the Dargah Mosque. The building itself began as Ishrat Mahal, also known as the Pleasure House. The building was ordered to be turned into a praying area, but it was deemed to small to fit the rush of people who would swarm it everyday. Then in 1968, the Muslim Auqaf Trust began the transformation and finished in 1979. The mosque is a mix of Mughal and Kashmiri architecture.
In the front view of the mosque is a beautiful lake. The back view of the mosque are mountains. On the grounds of the mosque is a bazaar, or marketplace, which gets incredibly busy on Fridays, the holiest of the 7 days in Islam. In addition, there is a shrine at the mosque, as there is at many large mosques in India. The shrine, being the biggest in Kashmir, is a shrine to the holy Phrophet Muhammad (pbuh). The hair of the holy Phrophet (pbuh) is available for view at the mosque, which is known as the Moi-e-Muqqadus. Many Muslims consider it a blessing to view the hair of their Phrophet (pbuh).