Abdul Gafoor Mosque

You're on Dunlop Street, a row of shophouses in the heart of Little India. Look up at the entrance: that radiating semicircle is this mosque's most original feature.

1A mosque for the neighbourhood

In the 19th century this was a working district. There were cattle pens, mills and, nearby, a racecourse. Many of the Muslims who lived here were traders from southern India, as well as Baweanese, people from the island of Bawean off Java, who were known as skilled horse handlers. For them a first timber mosque went up around the middle of the century.

The man who gave it its present form was Shaik Abdul Gafoor, a clerk at a law firm who came to manage its affairs. To pay for the work, he built shophouses around it and rented them out. The new building was finished around 1910 and has carried his name ever since.

2A sun of prophets

The style mixes Indo-Islamic, Mughal and European elements. Most striking is the large semicircular motif above the door, which looks like a sundial. Its twenty-five rays carry, in Arabic calligraphy, the names of the twenty-five prophets mentioned in the Quran.

It has been a national monument since 1979, and it reopened in 2003 after an award-winning restoration.

Today its prayer hall holds around two thousand worshippers.

3What to look for

• The "sun" of the prophets above the main entrance.
• The turrets and the dome set on stacked bases.
• The shophouses of Dunlop Street, still with shops on the ground floor.