Miskin Shah Mulla (R)

Miskin Shah Mulla (R) one of the many saints of Chittagong. Mulla Miskin Shah lies buried in a tomb situated on a hill opposite the Government Mohsin College (formerly the Chittagong Madrasa) by the side of a Shahi mosque. The tomb is approached by a lofty staircase from Dr Enamul Huq Road (formerly College Road). Local people call it Mulla Miskin's or Mulla Saint's Takia (Khanqah) and a large number of people, particularly students, visit the place for the saint's blessing.

Hamid Allah Khan's Persian history Ahadith al-Khawanin mentions that the saint's descendants were living at Kadalpur, a village in Raozan thana, Chittagong, but the saint was himself a celibate and had renounced the world. A recently discovered farman of aurangzeb has on record that twenty bighas of land was granted by the emperor as madad i-ma'ash (assistance for subsistence) to Mulla Miskin in pargana Haveli Chittagong in Sarkar Islamabad in the Subah-i-Banglah. The farman, issued in 1103 AH/1691-92 AD, records the name of the father of Mulla Miskin as Sipahdu, and that of his grandfather as Shaikh Sardu Mughali Siddiqui. On the evidence of the farman Mulla Miskin Shah can be placed in the 17th century and the mosque can also be assigned stylistically to the period of Aurangzeb. [Abdul Karim]