Nazeer Ahmed visited Bangalore, India in January in connection with Nazeer Saheb Charities Trust, of which he is the founder and patron. The Trust provides scholarships to poor students and undertakes public works of importance to the community. Recently, Nazeer designed and built a prayer area (Iddgah) and cemetery complex in Tumkur located 40 miles from Bangalore. The Iddgah is unique and has very subtle Sufi features.

Built only with local red bricks the Iddgah projects the Name of God in Arabic (Allah) against the background of the Indian blue sky. It is symmetrical, left to right, front and back. The six inner minarets are each nineteen feet from their individual foundations. The number nineteen is a mystical number which appears in the Quran. Six times nineteen is 114 which is total number of chapters in the Quran. Straight lines drawn from the apex of the minarets meet at an angle of 112.4 degrees which is twice 56.2 degrees. At a technical paper presented before the National Academy of Sciences at Harvard University in June 1972, Nazeer showed that the maximum sustainable angle of flow for solids and fluids (the pyramidal angle) is 56.2 degrees. So, the Iddgah reminds the viewer of the earth that we are all destined to return to. The word “Huwa” in Arabic in inscribed where the lines connecting the apex of the minarets meet. Huwa is the third person singular name (He) of God. There are many other subtleties in this structure and people come from all over to sit and partake of its beauty.