Mahfil (raised gallery)

A mahfil is a raised platform or gallery inside a mosque, lifted above the floor and reserved for a particular group of users. It can sit in a corner of the prayer hall, along its sides or across the entrance wall. The space beneath is usually left open so that the rows of worshippers on the floor are not reduced. In effect it adds a light upper level to the main space without dividing it.

Types of mahfil

• Muezzin’s mahfil: the platform from which the muezzins recite during prayer, usually near the mihrab or in the middle of the hall.
• Royal lodge (hünkâr mahfili): a section reserved for the ruler, often screened with lattice and given its own entrance.
• Women’s gallery: a gallery running along the entrance wall or the side walls.

Structure and position

Mahfils can be timber or masonry. Timber ones are built from slender posts and beams, with balustrades and ceilings often finished in painted decoration. Masonry ones rest on columns or piers with small arches and vaults. Because the load goes straight down to the floor, a mahfil usually behaves as an independent insertion rather than part of the main structure of the hall.

Mahfils in surveys and restoration

Timber mahfils are among the parts of a mosque that change most over its life; some were added later, some enlarged and some removed. In a measured survey, beam sockets in the walls, traces of former stairs and floor levels reveal those changes, and the restitution drawing of the original gallery relies on such evidence.