KATRA MASJID
KATRA MASJIDKatra Masjid or mosque is situated in the north eastern side of the city of Murshidabad, in West Bengal. The most striking feature of the structure are the two large corner towers having loopholes for musketry.
The Katra Masjid is a former Caravanserai (katra, a resting place for travellers), mosque and the tomb of Nawab Murshid Quli Khan, and said to one of the largest caravanserais in the Indian subcontinent. It was built during the 18th century, when the early modern Bengal Subah was a major hub of trade in Eurasia loopholes for musketry.
The whole mosque is quadrangular in shape, the whole mosque has no pillar support but it has been given support by a raised platform below the mosque or by several arches. The mosque was destroyed in the 1897 earthquake. In 1780 AD, a traveller name William Hodges, an English painter, wrote that 700 Qur’an readers lived there in the mosque. Hodges in his book Select Views of India describes it as “a grand seminary of Musalman learning, adorned by a mosque which rises high above all the surrounding buildings“.