Bagerhat

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Description

This city's name broadly taken means 'habitat of tigers' but the literal meaning for bagh is garden or tiger, and hat is market place. This meaning aptly describes the physical condition of this low mangrove forest, which was inhabited by the Royal Bengal Tiger.

Founded by legendary warrior-saint Ulugh Khan Jahan in the early fifteenth century, Bagerhat later became a mint town of the independent Sultans of Bengal and was called Khalifatabad.

Khan Jahan is considered one of the main torchbearers of Islam in the south of Bengal and built hundreds of mosques and public structures. Many of these structures reflect the Khan Jahani style, a unique blend of indigenous Bengali architecture and the Tughlaqid style of Delhi. Today, Bagerhat is being developed as a tourist spot but the tomb of Khan Jahan still remains a center of pilgrimage.

Sources:

Ahmed, Nazimuddin. 1989. The Buildings of Khan Jahan in and Around Bagerhat. Dacca: University Press Limited, 22.

"Bagerhat". World Monuments Fund Panographies. http://www.world-heritage-tour.org/asia/bd/bagerhat/map.html. [Accessed February 2, 2006]

[ All sites (6)  |   Historical (6)  |   Contemporary (0) ]

Associated sites

Site	Date	Century	Images
Chunakhola Mosque		15th	10
Khan Jahan Mausoleum	1459	15th	12
Nine Domed Mosque		15th	15
Sabek Danga	18th or early 19th	18th	8
Shait Gumbad Mosque	1459	15th	18
Singar Mosque	Late 15th C.	15th	4

Associated publications

Author	Title	Year
Ahmed, Nazimuddin and A	Architectural Conservation of Paharpur and Bagerhat	1990