White Minaret, Religious minaret in Qadian, India

The White Minaret is an octagonal stone tower of three stages rising about 32 metres beside the Aqsa Mosque. Its shaft is pale grey, with a projecting platform and carved lattice balustrade at the top; below, a rectangular panel bears a raised Arabic inscription above a pointed-arch opening with a lattice railing. The tower was veneered with white marble slabs in 1980.

Construction started in 1903 under one religious leader's direction but was halted before completion came in 1916 under a successor. These phases of building reveal the community's perseverance and shifts across more than a decade.

The minaret appears on the Ahmadiyya flag and in the movement's major publications, sometimes with rays of light. Its name, Minarat ul-Massih, means "Minaret of the Messiah". Mirza Ghulam Ahmad linked the hadith of Jesus descending at a white minaret east of Damascus to Qadian, which lies 3,644 km east of that city.

The minaret stands in the courtyard of the Aqsa Mosque, beside the Mubarak Mosque, in Qadian, Punjab. Its three stages are linked by 92 interior steps; the sources do not record public access to the top, so treat the tower as a monument to view from the courtyard. It is a protected monument.

A clock was installed at the top only in 1933, many years after the tower was first finished. This late addition shows how the building's purpose evolved and expanded over time.