Mosque and shrine, Bagerhat
Tomb of Khan Jahan Aliখান জাহান আলীর মাজার
- Time needed
- An hour, with the tank and the Nine Dome Mosque.
- best months
- Nov–Mar
- Cost
- Free.
The single-domed mausoleum of the saint who founded Bagerhat, on a rise above his crocodile tank; a living shrine where people of every faith come to pray and tie a wish.
Plan your visit
- Opening
- Open all day, every day; the mosque closes to visitors at prayer times.
- Best time
- Thursday evening for the gathering and singing; the Chaitra full moon (late March or April) for the fair, if you can bear the crowd.
At a glance
- Died
- 25 October 1459 (27 Dhul Hijjah 863 AH), from the inscription
- Tomb
- 13.7 m square, walls 2.4 m thick, one dome
- Also here
- Pir Ali's tomb, the Dargah mosque, the Thakur Dighi
- Fair
- Three days from the Chaitra full moon
About
Khan Jahan Ali died on 25 October 1459, and the stone over his grave says so in Arabic, which makes this one of the few precisely dated buildings of its age in Bengal. He probably built it himself in his last years. It is a square of thick brick, 13.7 metres a side, faced with cut stone to about a metre, with a single dome, four round corner towers and almost no ornament outside: the Khan Jahan style, plain and strong. Inside, the sarcophagus rises in three stone steps under Quranic verses in Arabic and Persian. Beside him lies his diwan Muhammad Tahir, called Pir Ali, in his own small tomb, and a one-domed mosque stands attached to the west, its mihrab lined up with the gate.
What the stones don't tell you is the life of the place. The tomb has been a dargah for over five centuries, and the courtyard is rarely empty: families come with chickens and ducks as offerings, threads are tied for a wish, and on Thursday evenings there is singing. It is one of the few shrines in Bangladesh where Hindu and Muslim devotees pray side by side, which the saint, remembered as much for digging wells and tanks as for preaching, would likely have approved of. On the full moon of Chaitra, in late March or April, a three-day fair fills the fields around it with more than a hundred thousand people.
Below the tomb to the south stretches the Thakur Dighi, the great tank he dug, with its famous crocodiles; the Nine Dome Mosque sits on its western bank and the Zinda Pir and Reza Khoda mosques are a short walk north-west.
Getting there: About 3 km south-west of Bagerhat town; a rickshaw from the bus stand, or 6 km from the Sixty Dome Mosque by the road that branches south at Ronvijoypur.
Things to do
- Read the Arabic inscription on the sarcophagus, the oldest dated words in the district.
- Sit a while in the courtyard and watch the offerings; it is the living side of the mosque city.
- Go down to the ghat on the Thakur Dighi and look for the crocodiles.
- Walk the lane west to the Zinda Pir and Reza Khoda mosques.
Good to know
- Dress modestly and take your shoes off at the tomb; women cover their heads inside.
- Donations are expected by the khadems but never required; give what you like at the box.
- Keep children back from the water: the crocodiles are real, and large.
