Sixty Dome Mosque

Start with your feet. The brick path toward the mosque is warm, even early in the day, and the air carries the damp, green smell of the delta. Somewhere a crow calls. Ahead of you stands a long, low wall of rust-red brick, and above it the roofline rises in a field of small rounded domes, row after row. It looks less like one building and more like a quiet, ordered village of domes.

This is the Sixty Dome Mosque, known locally as Shait Gombuj Masjid. It stands in Bagerhat, in the south-west of Bangladesh, not far from the edge of the Sundarbans mangrove forest. It is one of the largest mosques surviving from medieval Bengal. It is also the centrepiece of a much larger story about a city that grew out of swamp and jungle in the fifteenth century.

That story belongs to a man called Khan Jahan Ali. He was a commander and administrator during the time of the Bengal Sultanate, the independent Muslim kingdom that ruled this region in the late medieval period. Here, in difficult low-lying land, he founded a settlement known as Khalifatabad. He built roads, mosques, bridges and water tanks. Today the whole area is protected by UNESCO as the Historic Mosque City of Bagerhat, inscribed in 1985.

Now for the first surprise. Count the domes, and you will not find sixty. The prayer hall is roofed in seven long rows of eleven bays, and the corner towers add small domes of their own. The total comes out well above sixty. Where does the name come from, then? Nobody is fully sure. One popular explanation says "shait" may be a corruption of a word for the seven rows. Another says sixty simply refers to the stone pillars inside. Locals are happy to debate it.

Look at the corners of the building. Each one is held by a thick, round tower that tapers slightly as it rises. These towers make the mosque feel almost like a fortress. Historians often link this solid, sloping style to the architecture of the Tughlaq rulers of Delhi, a dynasty known for heavy, defensive-looking buildings. Here, that northern influence meets the materials and climate of Bengal.

And the material is brick. This part of the delta has very little building stone, but it has endless river clay. So the builders worked in fired brick, laid in walls so thick they keep the interior noticeably cooler. If you run your eye along the surface, you will see the brick is not uniform. It shows centuries of weathering, salt damage from the humid, brackish air, and many careful rounds of repair.

Walk along the eastern face. A long line of arched doorways runs across it, with the central arch larger than the rest. More arches open along the north and south sides. The effect is a building that breathes. Light and air move straight through it. In a hot, wet climate before electric fans, this openness was not decoration. It was simple good sense.

Step inside, after removing your shoes. The change is immediate. The noise of the path fades, and you enter a dim forest of slender columns supporting arch after arch. Your eyes take a moment to adjust. The pillars are stone, and many have been encased in brick over the years for strength. Stand still and listen. Footsteps and quiet voices soften under the low domes.

Here is the second surprise. Look up along the central aisle, the one that runs from the main door to the main prayer niche. Over this aisle, the roof is not made of round domes. Instead, it is covered by curved, ridged vaults, shaped like the roof of a traditional Bengali village hut. The builders took the form of bamboo-and-thatch homes and turned it into brick. It is a small detail, but it ties this grand mosque firmly to its local landscape.

Turn to the western wall, which faces toward Mecca. Set into it is a row of mihrabs, the arched prayer niches that show the direction of prayer. Look closely at their surfaces. Some still carry traces of terracotta ornament, fired clay worked into flowers, vines and geometric patterns. Much has worn away, but enough remains to suggest how richly decorated this hall once was.

Remember that this is not only a monument. It is a working mosque, and prayers are still held here, especially on Fridays. You may see local families, students on school trips, and pilgrims who have come to visit the wider network of sites linked to Khan Jahan Ali. His tomb lies a short distance away. Legend has it that the crocodiles in the pond beside the tomb descend from animals he kept, and people still bring offerings there.

Water, in fact, is everywhere in this landscape. Around Bagerhat you will find large, old rectangular ponds, called dighis, dug to supply drinking water and to drain the boggy ground. Near the mosque, one of these tanks spreads out flat and still, reflecting the sky. In the late afternoon, its surface turns silver, and the red brick of the mosque begins to glow.

As you leave, turn back once and take in the whole roofline again. All those small domes, repeated in patient rows, were raised by hand in a place that was once forest and marsh. Listen to the birds in the trees, feel the soft heat rising from the brick under your feet, and notice the people around you still using this hall for what it was built for. More than five centuries on, the Sixty Dome Mosque is still part of everyday life here.