5 Facts about Sixty-Dome Mosque

5 Facts about Sixty-Dome Mosque:

1. The construction of the Shat Gombuz Mosque was started in 1442 and it was completed in 1459. The mosque was used for prayers, and also as a madrasha and assembly hall. It was founded by a saint-General, named Khan Jahan Ali.
2. The ‘Sixty Dome’ Mosque has walls of unusually thick, tapered brick in the Tughlaq style and a hut-shaped roofline that anticipates later styles. The length of the mosque is 160 feet and width is 108 feet.
3. The mosque is locally known as the ‘Shat Gombuj Masjid’, which in Bangla means Sixty Domed Mosque. However, there are 77 domes over the main hall and exactly 60 stone pillars. It is possible that the mosque was originally referred to as the Shait (60) Khamba (local dialect for pillar) Mosque where Amud (شصت عمؤد) meaning column in Arabic/Persian, later got corrupted to Gombuj (গম্বুজ) in Bangla, which means domes.
4. The Chauchala (Four layered) vault of this mosque is believed to be the pioneering example of the reproduction of the rural bamboo-roof into a masonry vaulted roof.

This ancient mosque was honored as UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1985.