Khambhat

Khambhat, also known as Khambat and Cambay, is a city and the surrounding urban agglomeration in Khambhat Taluka, Anand district in the Indian state of Gujarat. It was once an important trading center, but its harbour gradually silted up, and the maritime trade moved to Surat. Khambat lies on an alluvial plain at the north end of the Gulf of Khambhat, noted for the extreme rise and fall of its tides, which can vary as much as thirty feet in the vicinity of Khambat. Khambat is known for its halvasan, sutarfeni and kites (patang), and for sources of oil and gas.

The city of Cambay was an important Indian manufacturing and trading center noted by Marco Polo and illustrated here in the 15th century.

Khambat is perhaps the only place in India where the Harappan craft agate bead making is found in the living tradition. Surprisingly Khambat has no stone deposits; the craft has survived mainly through acquiring stones from the Rajpipla hills, about 200 km away from the City. In the folklore of Khambat, the beginning of the craft is attributed to Baba Ghor, a 1500 AD saint from Ethiopia who had led a large contingent of Muslims to settle in the City. However, in the archaeological record the origin of the craft can be traced to nearby Lothal, a Harappan outpost that flourished about 4000 years ago.

Quotes

• Cambay is one of the most beautiful cities as regards the artistic architecture of its houses and the construction of its mosques. The reason is that the majority of its inhabitants are foreign merchants, who continually build there beautiful houses and wonderful mosques -- an achievement in which they endeavour to surpass each other.
  • Baṭṭūṭa, Ibn; Husain, Mahdi (1976). The Rehla of Ibn Battuta (India, Maldive Islands and Ceylon). Baroda: Oriental Institute. p. 172.

• Entering by Cuindarim,[11] which is the internal river, there is great and beautiful city that they call Cambaia, populated by 'mouros' (Muslims) and 'gentios' (Hindus). It has many beautiful houses, very high with windows, and covered with tiles in our manner. The streets are laid out well, with pretty squares and large buildings.
  • Duarte Barbosa , Livro em que dá relação do que viu e ouviu no Oriente. p. 77 sq.

• The Mosque of Cambay demonstrates the imposition of Khalji features, such as the arched screen of the Jama‘at Khana Masjid at the Dargah of Nizam-al-Din Aulia in Delhi, upon the local trabeate forms of Gujarat Hindu architecture. Codrington writes, ‘The Jami‘ Masjid at Cambay was finished in 1325, and is typical of these earlier buildings. It has all the appurtenances that Islam demands-cloisters, open court-yard, the covered place for prayer, mimbar and mihrab-but only the west end is in any sense Islamic. As at Delhi and Ajmir, the pillars of the cloisters, and notably the entrance porches as a whole, are the relics of sacked Hindu shrines.
  • Khambhat (Gujarat) . Syed Mahmudul Hasan, Mosque Architecture of Pre-Mughal Bengal, Dacca (Bangladesh), 1979, p. 46