Shah-Do Shamshira Mosque, Two-story yellow mosque in central Kabul, Afghanistan.
The Shah-Do Shamshira Mosque is a two-story mosque with a yellow facade and grey stone trim, standing on Andarabi Road near the Kabul River. Two tall cylindrical minarets flank the central structure, each topped with a small dome and finial. A large grey ribbed dome on a drum rises behind a projecting entrance section with a blue-grey gabled roof; the facade has a central arched portal beneath a small round window with radiating spokes, tall grilled arched windows, and a band of small arches below the roofline. Its Italian decorative stucco led some to call the style 'Afghan Baroque'.
The site began as a shrine over the grave of an Arab commander said to have fought with two swords; the mosque beside it was built later. It was destroyed several times, and in 1306 of the solar Hijri calendar (about 1927) Amanullah Khan's mother had it rebuilt. The present yellow two-story building, raised during Amanullah Khan's reign (1919–1929), follows Istanbul's Ortaköy Mosque. It was fully renovated in June 2021.
The name 'King of Two Swords' refers to Layth ibn Qays, an Arab commander said to have fought with a sword in each hand when he entered Kabul and was killed there. His grave beside the mosque is visited as a shrine, and white pigeons gather around it.
The mosque stands on Andarabi Road in District 2, just off the Kabul River and beside the Shah-Do Shamshira bridge, in the crowded centre of the city. The riverside bridge makes a clear landmark for orientation. The shrine draws its largest crowds on Wednesdays, and Friday and Eid prayers are held here.
The shrine beside the mosque holds two headless burials, according to a 2011 visitor account; caretakers there named the second body as that of Abd al-Rahman ibn al-Ash'ath, whose head was sent to al-Hajjaj and whose torso was buried next to Qays.
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