Dewanbagh Mosque

Dewanbagh Mosque is situated at village Dewanbagh (Manawar Khan Bagh) in Bandar upazila of Narayanganj district, about three kilometers southward from the Kanchpur Sitalakshya Bridge on the Dhaka-Chittagong highway. It was built in the pre-Mughal period, probably in the 16th century.

The mosque is a single domed square building with engaged octagonal corner towers extending beyond the parapet, and a veranda on the east. The mosque originally had three domes over the veranda which had subsequently been dismantled, and instead the existing dome built anew. The dome is carried on squinches. There are three entrances each on the east, north and south with semicircular arches, having their original slopes now been plastered over. The prayer chamber measures 10.8-meter square outside and 6.69-meter square inside. The mihrab has a pointed arch carved out of a piece of black stone with trefoil cusps. Similar cusped stone arches of mihrabs are also noticed in the fifteenth century mosque at Muazzampur (1433-36), Fath Shah Mosque (1484) at Mograpara, and the sixteenth century mosque at Goaldi (1519). Its mihrab arch and thick walls are indicative of its antiquity.

The mosque has been renovated several times, and further extended in the east by a veranda. All original features have been plastered over in the exterior. It is presently being used as a jami mosque. [Muazzam Hussain Khan]