Atia Mosque

• 1. Introduction

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  Atia Mosque rises above the Louhajang River's eastern bank in Bangladesh's Tangail District. Since the 3rd of August 1978, an image of this small mosque has appeared on the obverse of Bangladesh's ten taka banknote. People came to call it simply the 10 Taka Mosque. Long before that nickname existed, the mosque had already survived earthquakes and more than one rebuilding. It began as an act of devotion, ordered by a Mughal era zamindar in honour of a Sufi saint. Who was that saint, why did the mosque need repairing more than once, and how did it end up on the nation's money?

• 2. Built For A Saint

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  In the village of Atia, about 6 kilometers south of Tangail city in Delduar Upazila, an inscription from the mosque survives to this day. It is now preserved in the Bangladesh National Museum and dates the mosque's construction to 1610-1611 CE. That period fell during the reign of the Mughal emperor Jahangir, who had gifted the Pargana of Atia to Sayeed Khan Panni. Panni was the son of Bayazid Khan Panni of the Karatia Zamindari, and it was he who ordered the mosque built.

  Baba Adam Kashmiri, the Sufi saint the mosque honours, had died in 1507 CE, and his mazar stands close by. Panni, by local accounts, spared no expense in recruiting the era's most skilled masons and builders. What those craftsmen would go on to build blended two architectural traditions rarely paired together.

• 3. Design In Stone

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  Mughal architecture meets the older building style of the Bengal Sultanate period in the walls of this mosque. Its exterior measures 18.29 by 12.19 meters, and its walls run 2.23 meters thick. Behind those walls sits a large, domed, square prayer hall, attached on its east side to a veranda topped with three smaller domes. Three arched entrances face east, with the central one standing taller than the pair flanking it.

  The arches themselves are quadrangular in style. Three openings lead from the veranda into the main prayer room, and two further side entrances connect to both the hall and the veranda. Three ornate mihrabs decorate the qibla wall inside the prayer hall.

  Each of the mosque's four corners carries an octagonal tower, its surface broken into bands of parallel moulding. Those side towers rise, layer by ornamented layer, to the height of the roof cornice. At the top of each tower sits a small dome, finished with flat fluted cupolas and finials shaped like lotus flowers and kalasa pots.

  A large water tank, likely meant for ablutions before prayer, was another addition Panni commissioned west of the compound. Not every feature of Panni's design would remain untouched by time.

• 4. Earthquake And Repair

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  An earthquake struck the region in the early 19th century, damaging the mosque built under Panni's orders. In 1837, a woman named Rowshun Khatoon Chowdhurani, a merchant based in Delhi, paid to repair the damage.

  Zamindar Abu Ahmad Ghuznavi Khan of Delduar led a second restoration in 1909. He worked alongside other zamindars from the area, including Wajed Ali Khan Panni of Karatia.

  Those repairs, decades apart, carried the mosque into a century that would recognize it in an entirely different way.

• 5. A Mosque Remembered

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  Bangladesh's Department of Archaeology has designated Atia Mosque a protected monument. On the 6th of February 2010, people gathered at the nearby Shahan Shah High School to mark the mosque's 400th anniversary. Among those present were Mohammad Abdur Razzaque, Khandaker Abdul Baten, and Fazlur Rahman Faruque.

  Atianama, a newly published book tracing the mosque's history, also debuted at the gathering. That book now stands as the written record future visitors can turn to for the fuller story behind Atia Mosque.