Construction by the Mughals

The Badshahi Mosque features a monumental gateway that faces the Hazuri Bagh quadrangle and Lahore Fort.

The mosque was commissioned by the Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb (r. 1658–1707) in 1671, with construction overseen by the Emperor's foster brother, and Governor of Lahore, Muzaffar Hussein - also known by the name Fidai Khan Koka.Aurangzeb had the mosque built in order to commemorate his military campaigns against the Maratha king Chhatrapati Shivaji. After only two years of construction, the mosque was opened in 1673.

On 7 July 1799, the Sikh army of Ranjit Singh took control of Lahore.After the capture of the city, Maharaja Ranjit Singh used its vast courtyard as a stable for his army horses, and its 80 Hujras (small study rooms surrounding the courtyard) as quarters for his soldiers and as magazines for military stores.In 1818, he built a marble edifice in the Hazuri Bagh facing the mosque, known as the Hazuri Bagh Baradari,which he used as his official royal court of audience.Marble slabs for the baradari may have been plundered by the Sikhs from other monuments in Lahore. In 1839, after his death, construction of a samadhi in his memory was begun by his son and successor, Kharak Singh, at a site adjacent to the mosque.

During the First Anglo-Sikh War in 1841, Ranjit Singh's son, Sher Singh, used the mosque's large minarets for placement of zamburahs or light guns which were used to bombard the supporters of Chand Kaur, who had taken refuge in the besieged Lahore Fort. In one of these bombardments, the fort's Diwan-e-Aam (Hall of Public Audience) was destroyed, but was subsequently rebuilt in the British era. During this time, Henri de La Rouche, a French cavalry officer employed in the army of Sher Singh,also used a tunnel connecting the Badshahi mosque to the Lahore fort to temporarily store gunpowder.