Court Masjid

Walipur Alamgiri Mosque is situated in Walipur village under Hajiganj Upazila of Chandpur district. There are two mosques in the same locality - one known as Shahi Alamgiri Mosque and the other as Shah Shuja Mosque. The Alamgiri mosque has suffered much due to subsequent restoration works. Nevertheless, enough still survives to give an idea of its original plan and design. A Persian inscription in fine nastaliq character, fixed over the central doorway, records the construction of the mosque by one Abdullah in 1692 AD in the reign of Alamgir Aurangzeb.

In the middle of the eastern facade of the oblong mosque (15.24 m by 8.23 m) there is a projected fronton bordered with octagonal turrets through which opens out the main doorway. This has a higher arch with a half-dome within a rectangular frame. There are two more doorways in the eastern facade, one on either side of the central opening, having an outer arch with a half-dome below. Each of the north and south walls is pierced with a pair of arched doorways. The mosque has therefore seven archways in total -three in the east and two on each of the north and south walls. The four exterior angles of the building are strengthened by octagonal towers, which are carried beyond the horizontal parapets and topped over with kalasa finials, but have now been renovated.

Two massive octagonal brick pillars divide the interior of the mosque into five square bays - a large one in the middle (5.87m a side) and two smaller ones on its either side which are arranged in the east-west axis. Archways interconnect the bays; the arches are placed directly on two free standing octagonal pillars and engaged semi-octagonal pillars. It is worth noting that these arches are continued upwards as walls to make the bays above. This special device has given the mosque a two-storied appearance internally. All the five bays are roofed over with domes crowned with lotus and kalasa finials on cylindrical drums. The domes are carried on half-domed squinches on the upper corners and the blocked arches in between the square inches in the middle of the walls.

Octagonal turrets rising high above the horizontal parapets border the outside projection of the central mihrab, like that of the central archway. Inside, there are three mihrabs in the qibla wall. The central mihrab is semi-octagonal in design, but the flanking mihrabs are of the shallow rectangular type.

The original plastering of the building has been replaced by modern cement plaster. The horizontal parapet is now plain. The facade of the central archway projection is marked with shallow rectangular panels, each being further enriched with such motifs as plants and small trees with flowers in stucco. The central mihrab arch springs from beautifully decorated pilasters and has foliaged designs at its spandrels. The rectangular frame of the central mihrab, though now barely plain, is topped over with a frieze of blind merlons. A fine specimen of Mughal stucco ornamentation is still preserved in the squinches and blocked arches in between, which support the domes above. The extrados of the squinch arches and blocked arches are ornamented with interlocking scrolls, while the tympanums of the blocked arches are minutely embellished with floral scrolls with intertwining rosettes in the centers. Above them all round the interior base of the cylindrical drum runs a slightly sunken frieze decorated with floral scrolls.

Five-domed type mosque, one of the important varieties of Bengal mosques, shows two sub-types: (a) a mosque with a large central dome and a pair of small domes on each side in the same line and (b) a mosque with a large central dome and four small domes on the corners. The present mosque is the culminating example of the second variety. Both in planning and in the execution of elevation details of the building, the architect and the artisans have left behind a clear mark of their skills and perfection of ideas. The division of the interior of the mosque into five squares has been very scientifically effected by the disposition of two octagonal short massive freestanding pillars instead of the two east-west wide arches of the previous examples of the series. Mosques on this model were not built in Bengal for a long time, but almost two centuries later the type reappeared in the Becharam Dewri Mosque (1872) in the city of Dhaka. In plan Becharam Dewri Mosque is an exact copy of the Alamgiri Mosque but inferior in quality and elevation details.

Such mosque design in Bengal started with austagram mosque and evolved through the sarail mosque and the Walipur Alamgiri Mosque. The design is really unique. Question may now arise as to the origin of this particular kind of Bengal mosques. In Turkey under the early Ottomans the mosque of Rustam Celebi (c first half of the 15th century) at Tokat provides perhaps the earliest known example of its kind with five domes - the large central one and a small one on four corners. Similar plan is also found in such other Ottoman mosques as the Guzelce Hasan Bey Mosque (1406) in Hayrabolu and the Uc Serefeli Cam (1437-47) at Edirne. These mosques are generally regarded as the precursors of the great Ottoman mosques at Istambul - Bayezid mosque (1501-06), Sulaymaniya Mosque (1550-59), and the beautiful Selimya Mosque (1569-75) at Edirne. The five-roomed or five-domed planning of the Ottoman mosques may perhaps be said to have been dictated by those of some early Muslim buildings of Syria.

In India the Jamat Khana Mosque (1310-16) at Delhi is a lone example of its kind. This mosque design continued to have been practiced in Northern India in an elaborated form in Humayun's Mosque (1530) at Agra, where four small domed-rooms, instead of two, are attached on either side of the large central domed chamber. It may, therefore, be said that the plan of the second variety of the five-domed type mosques in Bengal was not innovated by Bengal architects, and its idea is very likely to have been borrowed from the sources stated above, particularly perhaps from those of Turkey or Upper India.

Written by: MA Bari

Kartalab Khan Mashjid or Mosque of Kartalab Khan (কর্তালাব খান মসজিদ) is located at the Begum Bazar of Old Dhaka. It was built by the Dewan Murshid Quli Khan, also known as Kartalab Khan during 1701-1704, and the mosque named after him. For its location, people used to call this as Begum Bazar Mosque. Hardly very few people know this mosque as Kartalab Khan's Mosque now a days. The Google Map coordinate of the mosque is (23°43'2.03"N, 90°23'54.59"E), near to the Dhaka Central Jail.

Like any other mosques of that period, this one was built over a plinth like high vault. This mosque has five domes at the top of it, and an extended do-chala (দো চালা) like room at northern side. Though it was built around 300 years back, but now a days none of its antiquities are available.

Old Dhaka is already a congested area and there is hardly any space around the mosque for you to observe. Busy trading is going on around the mosque area. In fact it will be hard for you to stand beside the road and watch the top of the mosque.

There are buildings around the mosque those are using as market. So you can easily use any of those. This mosque could have been used as a token of our glorious past if it were handled with great care.

Khwaja Shahbaz, the founder of the mosque was a prominent merchant of Dhaka. In fact, prominent is not the paragon for him. People used to call him as "Merchant of Prince". According to the history of the mosque, it was built at 1679 AD in the surrounding of the Ramna Park.

The mosque has three large Domes, and the architecture is almost similar to the structures at the era of Mughal (Shaista Khan). The measurement of the mosque is exactly 20.73 m by 7.92m. It is comprises with three front doors, where the middle one is a bit larger compare if you compare with other two.

As a commemoration, the mosque premise has a tomb of the founder of the mosque. The tomb is decorated with only a single dome. The southern part of the tomb has a nicely shaped veranda with a curvy roof. Inside the tomb, there is something which is covered with red cloth.

Each corner of the mosque or the tomb has a firmly built pillar, which are lovely to examine. The baroque style of the pillar will certainly impress you. Neither the mosque nor the tomb has any window. That's why when you'll look inside the tomb or mosque, you'll find it a bit darker, no matter how sunny the day is. Finally it is strictly forbidden for the women for "Jumma Prayer" at Friday. Using a notice board at the facade of the mosque, it’s proclaimed that they have no facilities for women for Jumma Prayer.

Bandar Shahi Mosque (বন্দর শাহী মসজিদ )  is situated in the Bandar Municipal area. It was built in 1482 AD (886 AH) by Malik Al-Muazzam Baba Saleh, a high official under Sultan Jalaluddin Fateh Shah.

It is a square building measuring 6.20 meter a side in the interior and 9.70 meter in the exterior. It has four octagonal corner towers and a large hemispherical dome supported by two engaged black stone pillars embedded in each wall with square bases, capitals and octagonal shafts. The square inches which hold up the dome spring from the top of these pillars. The dome has a lotus and pitcher finial. The raising of the dome on a drum crowned with merlons seems to be part of Mughal renovations. There are three entrances in the east of which the central one is wider, measuring 2.20 meter high and 1.37 meter wide. The two other entrances each on the south and north sides are 2 meter high and 1 meter wide. The side entrances are of the same size as the front central one. Of the three semi-circular mihrabs, the central one is the largest and the northern mihrab is being used as a closet.