Chapainawabganj travel blog, part-1: Small Golden Mosque

Last month, a friend of mine named Sohan and I visited Chapainawabganj, a district bordering the western part of Bangladesh. From today, I will regularly share with you the beginning and end of my Chapai Nawabganj trip. If you want to know about the ancient history of Bangladesh, you must see my every article. The friend who was with me also works on this platform like me. So this travel related post might have some similarities with his if he post on same trip. I hope you will look at the matter with a forgiving look. His username is @harmonic.

It was 28 January, 2022. It was friday, the weekend in our country. Chapainawabganj is the next district to Rajshahi where I live for study purpose. Before the travel day, me and my friend completed our routine of that day such as: when we should start our journey, how we should go there, which places we should travel and how we should return. As our routine we started my journey at 8 am. First we had to go bus terminal and collect our bus tickets. As we haf some time before bus departure, we took our breakfast at Dalas hotel and restaurant with Khichuri and fried egg. After breakfast our bus journey started. It took almost 80 minutes to reach Chapainawabganj bus terminal. As our routine, we decided to travel small gold mosque first of all which situated at Shibganj subdistrict in Chapainawabganj, we hired three wheeler to go Shibganj. It took 40 minutes to reach Shibganj. There was another friend of mine named Al-Amin who was waiting for us. After reaching there we ate the famous sweet Adi Chamcham of Chapainawabganj. The sweet was very nice and delicious. Then we again started our journey to small gold mosque with a bike which owned by my friend Al-Amin.

It was almost 17 kilometres away from Shibganj subdistrict town. The temperature was too low. We felt to cold weather when we were on the bike. And after 20 minutes we reached our destination, "Small gold mosque." On the way from Shibganj to Small gold Masjid, you have to pass Kansart Mango Bazaar, which is known as the largest mango market in Asia. It is to be noted that Chapai Nawabganj is called the mango capital of Bangladesh.

Let's know something about Small gold Mosque.

#Small Gold Mosque is one of the oldest mosques in Bangladesh, built by Wali Muhammad, a wealthy Muslim man, around 1500. At that time Alauddin Hussain Shah was the Sultan of this region of Bangladesh. At that time this region belonged to Gaur, the capital of ancient Bengal.

Naming: We do not have much reliable information about this wonderful architecture because of destruction of these remarkable architectural inscriptions. However, it is believed that the builder, Wali Muhammad, covered the twelve domes above the mosque with gold. As a result, when the sun shines on these domes, it glows. That is why it is popularly known as Sona Masjid. But not far from this mosque was another golden mosque on the border of India which was built by Sultan Nusrat Shah. Which is larger in size than this mosque. That is why the mosque in India was called Big Golden Mosque and the mosque in Bangladesh was called Small Golden Mosque.

The mosque is 80 feet long and 53 feet wide. And the inner and outer walls are full of sultanate art.

There are many graves in the courtyard of the mosque. Some graves are very old. It is unknown who are laid down in that graves. However, there are two new ones, one of them is the grave of Major Nazmul Haque Tulu and the other is for Captain Mohiuddin Jahangir. Captain Mohiuddin Jahangir was awarded the title of Bir Shrestha. Which is the highest recognition given to the freedom fighters in 1971 in recognition of their contribution to the war of independence of Bangladesh.

To be continued.

The next episode will be the 2nd episode of this travel blog written about Tohakhana, Three Dome Mosque and Shah Neyamat Ullah's Shrine. You will also find the Qasida written by Shah Neyamat Ullah where he prophesied about various issues of the world and which are very similar. Thanks.