Visit At Shat Gambuj
Masque in Bagerhat
Heritage is what we inherit from the past, live with them in
the present and then pass on to our children or future generation. Our source
of life and inspiration is our culture and natural heritage. When we speak of ‘World
heritage’, it indicates places and sites that we got from the past and pass on
to the future generation of the entire world.
The ‘Shat Gambuj Mosque’ in Bagerhat is such a heritage. It
become a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985.
Originally, the historic Mosque city was known as ‘Khalifatabad’.
It is situated outskirts of Bagerhat town , not very far the dense mangrove
forest of the Sundarbans. Khalifatabad was a Muslim colony. It was founded by Turkish
general, a saint warrior Ulugh khan Jahan in the 15th century. The infrastructure
of the city reveals significant technical skills in many mosque as well as
early Islamic Monument. Baked bricks were used for the construction of the
buildings. The planning of the city was distinctly dominated by Islamic
architecture and the decoration were a combination of the Mughal and the Turkish
architecture.
Khan Jahan built a network of roads, bridges, public
buildings, and reservoirs to make the city habitable. There were about 360
mosques in the city. Among them the most remarkable is the multi-domed Shet
Gombuj Mosque. The mosque is unique in the sense that it has 60 pillars that
support the roof, with 77 low height domes. The 4 towers at 4 corners have
smaller domes on the roof as well. The vast prayer hall has 11 arched doorways
on the east and 7 each on the north and south for light and ventilation. It has
7 aisles running along the length of mosque and 11deep curves between the slender
stone columns support the curving arches created by the domes. The thickness of
the arches is 6 feet and have slightly narrowing hollow and round wall.
The west wall in the interior has 11 ‘mihrabs’ niche in
mosque pointing towards Makkah. These midribs are decorated with stonework and
terracotta. The floor of the mosque is made of brick.
Besides being used as a prayer hall, Khan Jahan used the
Mosque as his court also. Today it is one of the greatest tourist attraction and
one of the beat architecture beauties of Bangladesh.
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