In 1572, as the Mughal Empire absorbed the Sultanate of Gujarat, a slave-turned-general named Sidi Saiyyed commissioned his final act of devotion — a mosque whose rear windows would be carved into lace-thin stone.
Sidi Saiyyed was an Abyssinian slave who had risen through the ranks of the Sultanate's army to become one of its most trusted commanders. As the old order gave way to Mughal rule, he poured his remaining resources into a small mosque near the city's western gate.
At the rear, flanking the qibla wall, Saiyyed's craftsmen carved two stone windows unlike anything Gujarat had seen. The right window depicts an intertwined tree — roots flowing into branches into leaves into roots again — so delicate that light passes through the stone as if through lace.
This is the Tree of Life jali. Botanists have debated whether it depicts a palm or a date tree. Architects marvel that the carvers maintained structural integrity across a screen just inches thick. Historians note that the motif blends Hindu kalpavriksha imagery with Islamic geometric precision — one of the purest expressions of the Indo-Saracenic synthesis that defines Ahmedabad.
The jali became Ahmedabad's symbol almost by accident. When IIM Ahmedabad was founded in 1961, its founders chose the Tree of Life as the institution's emblem. Today it appears on the city's official coat of arms. The mosque sits on one of Ahmedabad's busiest intersections, its stone windows protected by grilles, its prayer space still used on Fridays. The tree still grows.