Bengal (both Bangladesh and West Bengal of India), which is a deltaic region includes one of the most heavily populated concentrations of Muslims in the world and is isolated from the core land of Islamic civilization. Almost three quarters mosques were built in Bengal during independent Sultanate period (1342 to 1576). The characteristics of these mosques have changed a lot over time compared to the typical features of Islamic architecture. The architectural historians are trying to classify and differentiate the features of Islamic architecture based on the climate, geography and the cultural conditions of Bengal from decade to decade in a traditional way rather than emergent generation of a style. Shape grammar which had been explored by Stiny & Gips (1972) is a rule based methodology for analyzing and generating designs of any style . This book describes a grammar for Sultanate Mosques in Bengal architecture to give a new framework of understanding the style systematically. Shape grammar methodology is used to develop the grammar for Sultanate Mosques with the help of a shape grammar interpreter, Grammar Environment (Li et al, 2009).

The mosque architecture of the Independent Sultanate period (from the 14th to the 16th centuries) represents the most important element of the Islamic architecture of Bengal. In this book Perween Hasan demonstrates that the distinctive style of the region drew its inspiration from the indigenous vernacular architecture of Bengal, which was also a source for the Buddhist/Hindu temple architecture of the region. She illustrates with photographs and floor plans how the popularity of the style is rooted in the geography, ecology and culture of the area. -- Dust Jacket.

The Darasbari mosque is the largest mosque in the Bangladesh part of Gaur-Lakhnauti, now in ruins. It is situated in the Darasbari quarter of the mediaeval city on the west side of the Chhota Sona-Kotwali Darwaza Road, at present a desolated area near the Indian border. The name Darasbari is derived from its being located within a darsbari (place of lesson or learning), pointing to the madrasa to the east of the mosque, separated by a large tank, forming a typical Muslim educational complex (religious institution). According to its inscription, which is now preserved in the Indian Museum at Calcutta, Shamsuddin Abul Muzaffar Yusuf Shah built the mosque in 1479 AD. The 'Bengali Sultanate Architecture' is ingredient of this consent. A happy blending of local influences and the Sultanate style express the acquaintance with the people, land, air and water. In another ward Sultans ruled Bengal with elaborate time span. It is known to the world that Bengal establishes an authentic style of Sultanate architecture in making mosque and tombs.

This thesis aims essentially at an investigation of the origins and developments of mosque architecture in the region of Bengal in pre-Mughal times (that is, for these purposes, to A.D. 1538); but, since the study of a limited aspect of a pan-Islamic manifestation may in itself be sterile, an attempt has been made to integrate the Islamic Bengali microcosm into the macrocosm of the mediaeval Islamic world. Firstly, therefore, the growth of religious architecture is related to its humanistic background, especially that of the development of Islam with its political and social implications increasing in importance while Islam as a religious system gathered increasing momentum. The mosque itself is then studied in various aspects: the architectural origins of the mosque as a focal point of the religious life of the community are first investigated; and then the history of mosque architecture from the beginning to A.D. 1538 is analysed in general, but always with an eye to the particular manifestations of Bengal. Evidence for the etymologies which have been proposed for the term Masjid are collected and discussed in extenso; but, to preserve the continuity of the major arguments of the thesis, this material has been relegated to an appendix. The mosque architecture of Bengal is then discussed in detail. All previous work on the subject is examined and criticized, and the errors and misapprehensions of some authors corrected and explained. The treatment of this material is at once broadly chronological and typological, and a viable classification (as exhibited in the Table of Contents) has been adopted throughout. Full use has been made of the rather confused epigraphical evidence. While Mughal architecture is not the direct concern of the thesis, an attempt has also been made to relate some characteristic aspects of Bengali building and their future employment in Mughal times. The decorative arts of the period have been considered in drawing conclusions; but the volume of evidence from this sphere is so great as to have made it necessary to exclude any detailed discussion in this thesis. Thus the thesis as a whole presents an ordered exposition of Bengali mosque architecture viewed in its wider context, which I submit as an original contribution to scholarly knowledge especially in the exercise of critical judgment over the whole field; in addition, some new evidence is here presented for the first time, which adds a further dimension to the validity of my criticism.