Sonargaon

Sonargaon, 'the golden village', was a capital and trading centre of eastern Bengal, set among the rivers where the Brahmaputra, Meghna and Shitalakshya meet. Its weavers made some of the finest cotton cloth in the world, and its mosques, tombs and religious schools show the wealth of a city that drew travellers from far beyond the delta. Coins were struck here in the names of Bengal's rulers.

When the governor died in 1338, his armour-bearer Fakhruddin Mubarak Shah declared himself independent sultan of Sonargaon, built a trunk road and embankments, and conquered Chittagong in 1340. The Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta visited during his reign and found a prosperous place. After Shamsuddin Ilyas Shah united Bengal in 1352, Sonargaon stayed on as an eastern capital and mint. Ma Huan, who sailed with Zheng He, described a walled city of bazaars and a port. Under Alauddin Husain Shah it served as a base for campaigns against Assam, Tripura and Arakan. In the late sixteenth century the chieftain Isa Khan made Sonargaon the centre of resistance to the Mughals, and his river navy beat them in 1584. His son Musa Khan submitted to the Mughal governor in 1611, and Dhaka, the new provincial capital, drew away Sonargaon's political weight, though its weaving remained famous.