Bagerhat

early 15th c. foundation

Bangladesh

This city's name broadly taken means 'habitat of tigers' but the literal meaning for bagh is garden or tiger, and hat is a marketplace. 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.

In 1985 the Historic Mosque City of Bagerhat was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

VIAF: http://viaf.org/viaf/126797347

Sources:

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

"Bagerhat". World Monuments Fund Panographies. http://www.world-heritage-tour.org/asia/bd/bagerhat/map.html. [Accessed February 2, 2006, not accessible as of August 16, 2016.]

UNESCO World Heritage Center. n.d. “Historic Mosque City Of Bagerhat.” Accessed April 22, 2022. https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/321/. Archived at: https://perma.cc/CQ6B-5QWZ.