Sylhet

Sylhet stands on the Surma River in a basin enclosed by hills and seasonal wetlands. Its waterways connect the town with the Meghna and the Bengal delta, while routes lead eastwards towards Assam. The shrine of Shah Jalal, a Muslim holy man closely associated with the region, made Sylhet a centre of pilgrimage as well as a river town. Its position near the edge of the hills placed it at a meeting point of the upland country and the extensive floodplains of eastern Bengal.

An inscription dated 1512–13 records that Sikandar Khan Ghazi conquered Sylhet in 1303–04, and associates the victory with the spiritual authority of Shah Jalal. The Moroccan traveller Ibn Battuta later journeyed up the Meghna and Surma to visit the holy man, spending three days with him. Stories of Shah Jalal and his companions became central to the religious memory of the town and its surrounding countryside.

Control of the Surma valley passed between neighbouring powers. The Bengal Sultanate recovered Sylhet in the fifteenth century after a period outside its control. In the early seventeenth century Afghan chiefs resisted Mughal expansion in eastern Bengal; after the defeat of Khwaja Usman in 1612, the Mughals consolidated their authority in the area. Sylhet’s river connections continued to carry people and goods between the hills and the delta.