Thursday 16 June 2011

Sonargaon- the oldest capital of Bengal


Sonargaon's value in the pre-Muslim age is borne out by its very old name of Suvarnagrama (the golden village), from which it is visible how the Muslim description of the name is derived, as well as by the continuation of Langalbandh and Panchamighat, the two usual holy bathing places of the Hindus, in this tract of land on the west bank of the old Brahmaputra. Sonargaon rose to be the seat of an self-governing ruler under Ghiyasuddin Bahadur Shah, and after his fall it was the head office of the eastern province of Bengal under the Tughlaqs till 1338. Sonargaon emerged as the capital of a self-determining Sultanate under Fakhruddin Mubarak Shah (1338-1349). In the late nineteenth and near the beginning twentieth century Panam Nagar was urbanized in a part of medieval Sonargaon.

By the second district of the fourteenth century AD Sonargaon had urbanized into a profitable city; seafaring boats could easily reach Sonargaon from west Asian and southeast Asian countries. Ibn Batuta describes Sonargaon as a significant port city, which had direct profitable relations with countries like China, Indonesia (Java) and the Maldives. Muslin produced in Sonargaon, especially its premium diversity called khasa, had a universal reputation. With the loss of political status in the next decade of the seventeenth century AD Sonargaon gradually lost its profitable significance as well. It again rose to some distinction in the nineteenth century AD when Panam Nagar was recognized as a trading centre in cotton fabrics, chiefly English piece goods. Sonargaon urbanized into a seat of Islamic knowledge under the adaptable academic Maulana Sharfuddin Abu Tawwamah of Bokhara who came to Sonargaon a little bit connecting 1282 and 1287 and recognized a Khanqah and madrasa in which all brushwood of Islamic knowledge as well as worldly sciences were skilled and study.

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