Saat Masjid Road and a mosque

Saat Masjid Road is that one strip in Dhaka that everyone knows of. From the numerous eateries in Dhanmondi and going much beyond those, this road touches upon Dhanmondi, Lalmatia, and Mohammadur. But have you ever seen the mosque after which the road takes its name? 

Saat Gombuj Mosque, or the seven-domed mosque, is located in Mohammadpur.

"Practically the mosque is of the three-domed type, but its four corner towers are hollow and built in two stages with a covering of dome. Thus in all there are seven domes in the mosque...," Ahmad Hasan Dani wrote in his book, Muslim Architecture in Bengal. 

He added, "Stylistically it can be dated to the later half of the 17th century A.D. It may have been built by Nawab Shaista Khan, as the local tradition remembers." 

A branch or stream of the Buriganga flowed beside Saat Gombuj Mosque in the olden times, but it is hard to imagine that in this day and age! Possibly a testament to the last vestiges of the river-and-mosque connection could be found in Dani's book which was published in 1961: "The mosque stands on the edge of a swampy pool, which dries up during the summer."