Mosque and shrine, Bagerhat
Bibi Begni Mosqueবিবি বেগনী মসজিদ
- Time needed
- Twenty minutes, plus the walk.
- best months
- Nov–Feb
- Cost
- Free.
A heavy single-domed mosque on the far bank of the Ghora Dighi, said to be named for Khan Jahan's wife, with walls three metres thick and Persian-style brick lattice.
Plan your visit
- Opening
- Daylight hours.
At a glance
- Walls
- 3.1 m thick
- Mihrabs
- Three, the centre 1.2 m deep
About
Walk west from the Sixty Dome Mosque along the Ghora Dighi, past the fishermen, and the path brings you in 800 metres to a squat, powerful building on the tank's western bank, in the village of Chunakhola. Local memory says Bibi Begni was Khan Jahan Ali's wife; nothing written confirms it, but the mosque is of his time and style and the name has stuck.
It is larger than Singair and much heavier: a single dome over a hall about 10 metres square, inside walls 3.1 metres thick, which is why it still stands. Three doors on the east, one each north and south, three semicircular mihrabs on the west with the middle one the largest. The decoration that survives is on the corner towers, six rows of mouldings cut in lozenges, triangles and teeth, and in a four-petalled mesh pattern that scholars trace back to the brickwork of Persian shrines. The dome and much of the upper wall have been rebuilt, plain. Come for the walk along the water as much as the building.
Getting there: 800 m west of the Sixty Dome Mosque on the west bank of the Ghora Dighi; on foot along the tank, or by rickshaw via Barakpur.
Things to do
- Walk the north bank of the Ghora Dighi from the Sixty Dome Mosque; the view back across the water is the best in Bagerhat.
- Continue 300 m north-west to the Chunakhola Mosque in the rice fields.
Good to know
- The path can be muddy after rain; in the monsoon go by rickshaw along the village road instead.
