A mosque is a place of worship for Muslims. Mosques are also known as Masjids. Usually, mosques or masjids are used for communal prayer on Friday Noon called Jumu'ah or Jami. Beyond the significance as a place of worship, mosques bear the symbol of tradition and architecture. Since the medieval periods, many Muslim kings have ruled over the territory now known as Bangladesh. Numerous palaces, mosques, and forts have been constructed in this region. Still today, some century-old historical mosques represent the grandeur of the rich Islamic architecture and tradition. Let us take a look at the top 10 historical mosques of our country.

Beautiful Traditional Mosques in Bangladesh

Shat Gombuj Mosque

It is one of Bangladesh's oldest mosques. During the reign of Sultan Nasiruddin Mahmoud Shah (1435-59), Khan Jahan Ali constructed a spectators' walkway for q gathering, which was ultimately converted into sixty domed mosques. On the west wall of the mosque, there are ten mihrabs. Within the middle, there is a towering and lovely mihrab. In the south, there are 5 mihrabs, and in the north, there are 4 mihrabs. There is a little entrance just next to the main mihrab, on the north facet, where there is thought to be one mihrab.

From north to south, the mosque is 160 feet long, 143 feet long inside, 104 feet wide from east to west, and 88 feet wide inside. The walls are approximately 8.5 feet thick. Surprisingly, the total number of domes in the sixty-domed mosque is 81, with 11 domes in seven rows totaling 77 domes, four in each, and four in each of the four corners.

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Atiya Mosque

The Atiya Mosque is about six kilometers south of the district headquarters in the Tangail district's Delduar Upajilla village of Atiya. During Emperor Jahangir's reign, Sayeed Khan Panni, son of Baizid Khan Panni, erected the heritage mosque in honor of Shah Baba Kashmiri in 1019 AH (1610-1611 AD).

The mosque is small, measuring 18.29 meters by 12.19 meters on the outside and 2.23 meters on the inside. The rectangular design of this heritage mosque features a square single-domed prayer hall and an additional rectangular bay on the eastern side with three smaller domes. Three arched doorways can be found on the east wall, the middle one being slightly wider than the rest. The arches have a four-centred design to them. From the passageway, three smaller entrances lead to the main prayer chamber.

The builder also dug a big tank on the mosque's western side. Following the arrival of a famous saint, Shah Baba Kashmiri, who established Islam in this Bengal region, Atiya grew to prominence. The date of construction is confirmed by a duplicate of the inscription, which is presently exhibited above the mosque's central gateway (1609 AD). It is located on the east side of the Louhajong River.

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Kusumba Mosque

Kusumba Mosque is named after the village of Kusumba, which is located on the west bank of the river Atrai in the Manda upazila of Naogaon district. It is located within a walled enclosure with a grand entryway and guard standing areas.

It was built by one Sulaiman, most likely a high-ranking official, during the Afghan administration in Bengal under one of the final Suri monarchs, Ghiyasuddin Bahadur Shah. The building's eastern central entrance has an inscription tablet in Arabic dating it to 966 AH (1558-59 AD).

The mosque is rectangular in shape, with three bays and two aisles on the east side, and two on the north and south sides. In the west, the center mihrab is projected. Two mihrabs are on the floor level opposite the central and southeastern entrances on the interior west (qibla) wall, but the one in the northwestern bay is above a raised platform ascended by a staircase on the east.

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Chhota Sona Mosque

The Chhota Sona Mosque, sometimes referred to as a "jewel of Sultanate architecture," is located in the Firuzpur Quarters of Gaur-lakhnauti, the capital of Sultanate Bengal, some 3 kilometers south of the Kotwali Darwaza and half a kilometer southeast of the Tahkhana complex. It sits on the western end of a big tank's southern bank. A new two-story Guest House, erected several years ago by the Department of Archaeology and Museums, Government of Bangladesh, is located a short distance west of the mosque.

Between the Guest House and the mosque, a modern road, which looks to be of older origins, runs north-south, linking Gaur-main Lakhnauti's city with its suburb to the south via the Kotwali Darwaza. The mosque was established by one Majlis-al-Majalis, Majlis Mansur Wali Muhammad bin Ali, according to an inscription tablet still attached over the central entryway.

Sultan Alauddin Husain Shah's name shows that the mosque was constructed during his reign (899-925 AH/ 1493-1519 AD).

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Bagha Mosque

Bagha Mosque, located in Bagha, about 40 kilometers southeast of Rajshahi, is in a rather decent condition. The mosque was constructed on the western bank of a rather big tank within a 48.77m square brick-walled courtyard. Two historic arched gateways, one on the north and the major one on the south, both consisting of a simple rectangular curved building with a turret on either side, could be used to enter the mosque compound. This brick-built mosque, now a protected monument of Bangladesh's Department of Archaeology, is an oblong construction measuring approximately 23.16m by 12.80m on the outside.

Octagonal towers, separated into pieces by moulded bands and crowned with polygonal solid cupolas, emphasize the building's four exterior angles. The building's cornice is gently curled in the Bengali style.

On the east side, there are five arched openings, and two on the south and north sides. Three mihrabs are located at the western end of the three southern bays, a panelled design in the fourth, and a smaller mihrab is located in the raised gallery in the northwestern corner of the mosque. A row of four stone pillars divides the mosque's interior into two longitudinal aisles and five bays.

As a result, the mosque is divided into ten separate square sections, each of which is topped with an inverted cup-shaped dome. Because the old roof collapsed in the 1897 earthquake, the archaeological department restored the current domed ceiling.

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Sura Mosque

Sura Masjid, also known as Surmya Masjid or Shuja Masjid, is located 10 kilometers west of Ghoraghat upazila in the Dinajpur district, adjacent to the antiquated depot on the Ghoraghat-Hili open avenue.

Its external measurements are 12.12 m x 7.87 m. The mosque's main hallway has a minaret on each of its four corners, as well as a two-corner exterior at each veranda corner. These are carved out of black stone. There are three doors leading out to the lanai and the east mass of the main corridor. Above the main room, there is a dome, and above the porch, there are three smaller domes.

Inside, the mihrabs on the west wall are of the highest quality. Within the mosque, the use of stone with bricks, the stone pillars in the middle of the partitions, and the brick masonry are all striking. Furthermore, each door has a stone door beneath it. From the east, there is a staircase that leads to the mosque. The remnants of this antiquity are thought to be no older than the Gupta period.

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Darasbari Mosque

A famous example of Muslim Bengal architecture is the Darasbari Mosque. In Shibganj upazila of Chapainawabganj district, between Omarpur and Kotwali Darwaza, in the midst of Chhota Sona Mosque and Kotwali Darwaza.

On the Indo-Bangladesh border, the mosque is located. It is the largest mosque in Gaur-Bangladeshi Lakhnuti's section. The mosque was built in 1469 AD (64 AH) under the reign of Sultan Shams Uddin Yusuf Shah, according to an Arabic engraving uncovered by Munshi Elahi Bakhsh during power study (engraving size 11 toes 3 inches, width 2 toes 1 inch).

The mosque was previously known as Firozpur Mosque, but when Sultan Hussain Shah constructed the University of Darusbari in 1502 AD, the world and the mosque became known as Darusbari. Dars is a word that means "lesson." There was probably once a madrasa attached to the mosque just here. In his own language, General Cunningham called it Darasbari or College.

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Khania Dighi Mosque

This mosque is also known as Rajbibi Mosque. The literal meaning of the word 'rajbibi' is royal lady. This suggests that this mosque was constructed at Gaur-Chapainawabganj by a powerful member of a ruler's family. Because no inscription has been assigned, the year of founding cannot be determined. It is a modest mosque standing on the western bank of historical Khania Dighi. The structure's east-west direction indicates that it was dug by a Muslim king. The mosque is one of a collection of buildings with a square-shaped design and a fore-room.

A semicircular dome encircles the main prayer chamber. The extrados of this dome has been restored as a smooth surface, although it can be presumed that the extrados of the dome had a succession of bands from seeing the different examples in Gaur and the images before restoration. All of the walls are made of bricks, with a stone layer at the plinth level and another at the lintel level. A stone layer was added to the mid-level of all the corner turrets during rebuilding. Only the Qibla wall is surrounded by stones from the inside.

At the corners, there are six octagonal turrets: four in the main hall and two in the fore-room. These turrets have terracotta lozenge-impressed brick moldings at the base, as well as a terracotta frieze in the interspaces.

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Star Mosque

The Star Mosque is located in the ancient section of Dhaka City, on Abdul Khairat Road, Armanitola. There is no inscription on the mosque that indicates when it was built. Mirza Golam Pir, whose forefathers had moved to Dhaka, is said to have built it. Since Mirza Golam Pir’s death can be traced to the year 1860, the mosque's construction has occurred most likely in the first half of the nineteenth century.

It was originally a three-domed oblong mosque (10.06m x 4.04m). The Qibla wall has three mihrabs in accordance with the mosque's three doors, the central one being larger than the side ones. In 1926, a local businessman named Alijan Bepari constructed a porch to the mosque's eastern side, nearly tripling its breadth without affecting the mosque's original form. 

On the verandah's eastern face, five arches were built on four pillars. He also paid for the resurfacing with beautiful and vibrantly colored varied pattern tiles. The three-domed mosque was converted to a five-domed mosque in 1987. The mosque's current length and width are 21.34m and 7.98m, respectively. The plan was altered slightly, with one mihrab removed and two additional domes, and three new mihrabs built. The mosque is entered through five arched doors.

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Goaldi Mosque

The Goaldi Mosque is a mosque in Sonargaon, the historic Bengali capital. It was constructed during the Bengal Sultanate, under Sultan Alauddin Hussain Shah's rule. It is one among the few remaining medieval monuments in Bangladesh's Sonargaon Upazila.

In 1519, the mosque was built. During the time of Sultan Alauddin Husain Shah of Bengal, Mulla Hizabar Akbar Khan built it near Goaldi, half a mile northeast of Panam village in Sonargaon. The Goaldi mosque is an example of a Bengali 'enclosed square type' mosque, with a cubical prayer chamber, corner towers, and entrances on all sides save the qibla wall. 

The mosque is topped by a single dome, with engaged ribbed turrets defining the four corners and a gently sloping cornice. Circular corner towers differ from the more common octagonal corner towers. In the Dhaka district, this is the unique example of circular corner towers. A row of miniature niches with floral designs inside complements the cornice.

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Bottom Line

So far we have discussed the top 10 historical mosques in Bangladesh. Besides these mosques, there are many more traditional mosques located in different parts of the country. These mosques remind us of the golden memories of history and culture. However, some of these old mosques are in dilapidated condition and need renovation.