Kartalab Khan’s Mosque – Old Dhaka

Kartalab Khan’s Mosque is located at the Begum Bazar of Old Dhaka. It was built by the Dewan Murshid Quli Khan, also known as Kartalab Khan during 1701-1704, and the mosque named after him. For its location people use to call this as Begum Bazar Mosque too. Hardly very few people know this mosque as Kartalab Khan’s Mosque now a days. The Google Map coordinate of the mosque is (23°43’2.03″N, 90°23’54.59″E), near to the Dhaka central jail.

Like any other mosques of that period this one was built over a plinth like high vault. This mosque has five domes at the top of it, and an extended do-chala like room at northern side. Though it was built around 300 years back, now a days none of its antiquities are available.

Old Dhaka is already a congested area and there is hardly any space around the mosque for you to observe. Busy trading is going on around the mosque area. In fact it would be hard for you to stand beside the road and watch the top of the mosque. From my experience, it was hard to take any snap of the mosque by standing on the middle of the road.

There are buildings around the mosque those are using as market. So you can easily use any of those. I have been two of those to get a view of the mosque. I was only able to manage the back side view of the mosque. This mosque could have been used as a token of our glorious past if the care was taken initially.

The famous Tara mosque from Old Dhaka is very near from this mosque. You could visit both the mosques during the same day.

Kartalab Khan’s Mosque,
Begum bazar,
Old Dhaka,
Country: Bangladesh,
GPS Coordinate (23°43’2.03″N, 90°23’54.59″E).

This article has written by Lonely Traveler,
for the blog http://alonelytraveler.com/

Saturday, 11 June 2011