Perween Hasan, professor in the Department of Islamic History and Culture at Dhaka University, recently published her book Sultans and Mosques: The Early Muslim Architecture of Bangladesh (London: I.B.Tauris and Co Ltd).

Though the book originated as her doctoral thesis and is fairly technical in nature, with architectural terms and plans not easily accessible to the layperson, it is on a subject that is inherently interesting to Bangladeshis. How can we not be interested in the mosques around us, not be curious about their origins and history, not wonder about the ideas and environment that shaped them ? What do they reveal about the arrival of Islam in the delta from north India and beyond, about its impact and spread, about our own evolution as a nation and state? Dr. Perween Hasan, by focusing her study on the independent Bengal Sultanate period, has written a study that zeroes in on the formative era of mosque-building in the eastern part of Bengal that is now Bangladesh.
Read more: Perween Hasan: On mosque architecture and the psychic mould of today’s Bengali Muslim