Karim-ud-Din Mosque Built With Material From Hindu Structures.

 Karim-ud-Din Mosque Bijapur was built with material from Hindu structures.

At the heart of the ancient city of Vijayapura, in Karnataka, was a large and ancient temple built in the tenth or eleventh century. Vijayapura, founded by the Chalukyas, was known as the Varanasi of the South. As far back as thousand years ago this temple welcomed pious Hindus eager to experience the beautiful Svayambhu (self-arisen) deity of Siddeshwara. The temple was a charming example of Chalukyan architecture and consists of many large magnificently stone-carved pillars of the Chalukyan style, which is easily recognizable and distinct.  There were also a fairly spacious mandapa with friezes that attest to the mastery of the shilpis. For many years this temple was alive with joyous festivals, sacred rituals, yagnas, annadanams (feedings to the poor), Vedic recitations, and classical music and dance.  Like any other Hindu temple, this was a microcosm of the sophisticated culture and society that had built it.  Inside the temple, there was the customary garbhagriha (sanctum sanctorum) but the Svayambhu Siddeshwara no longer resides there, or anywhere else on the temple property. 

The explanation is common but disturbing:  the Svayambhu Siddeshwara murti was destroyed in the year 1320 and the temple was pillaged and converted into a mosque by Muslim invaders from the Delhi sultanate per Alauddin Khilji orders.

Karim-ud-Din Mosque was built with material taken from the old Hindu structures. The entrance porch is the mandapa of the temple already existing. The central area of the prayer hall, which is raised above the other areas, is resting on pillars of various design piled one upon the other. 

It gives an impression of an old and dilapidated Hindu temple. Except the surrounding wall it is wholly made up of pillars, beams and slabs taken from old Hindu Shrines. The entrance porch to the enclosure is in fact a part of Hindu temple with in situ hall or mandap with its pilasters and niches, but now devoid of its roof.

According to Henry Cousens, this building had been erected from miscellaneous material obtained from one or more Hindu temples. It is also said that originally it was an Agrahara, a Hindu college, which was converted in to a mosque on Malik Kafur’s instruction. 

https://reclaimtemples.com/karimaldin-mosque-a-seized-hindu-temple-of-vijayapura/

Aiyangar, Krishnaswami.  South India and Her Muhammadan Invaders.  London: Oxford University Press, 1921.

Cousens, Henry.  Bijapur, The Capital of the Old Adil Shahi Kings: A Guide to its Ruins with Historical Outline.  Poona: The Orphanage Press, 1889.

Cousens, Henry.  Bijapur and its Architectural Remains.  Bombay: The Government General Press, 1916.

Goel, Sita Ram. Hindu Temples What Happened to Them Volume II. New Delhi: Voice of India, 1990.