Adina Mosque Pandua

Adina Mosque stands at Pandua in Malda district, West Bengal, about 20 kilometres north of Malda town. It was built in 1375 by Sultan Sikandar Shah of the Ilyas Shahi dynasty, when Pandua served as the capital of the Bengal Sultanate. At the time of construction it was among the largest mosques in the Indian subcontinent, and its plan was inspired by the Great Mosque of Damascus. The mosque is a large rectangular enclosure of roughly 155 by 87 metres, with a vast open courtyard surrounded by arched cloisters, and a prayer hall on the western side. The prayer hall once had a barrel-vaulted nave and many domes, and a raised platform called the Badshah-ka-Takht, a royal gallery from which the Sultan could pray. Many of the surviving arches and pillars are made from stone taken from earlier Hindu and Buddhist structures, and some carvings of deities are visible on reused blocks. The mosque is built of brick, faced with stone, and decorated with terracotta and carved stone. The complex was damaged by earthquakes and by neglect in the centuries after Pandua was abandoned, and much of the roof collapsed. The tomb of Sikandar Shah is believed to lie in a smaller chamber attached to the mosque. The Archaeological Survey of India has conserved the ruins, consolidating the arches and clearing vegetation. The monument stays open from sunrise to sunset, and a lawn within the courtyard makes it a calm place to visit. It is typically paired with the Eklakhi mausoleum, nearby at Pandua.