ISLAM IN BANGLADESH

Lost mosque, Lalmonirhat

In what is now the fourth largest Islamic population in the world, Bangladesh has a history of Islam that goes back, almost certainly, to the lifetime of the Holy Prophet himself.

The Sunni Muslim population is one of the most liberal in the Islamic world, apart, perhaps, from Indonesia, and that continues a history of religious tolerance and coexistence of over two millennia, first when Hindus learnt the trade perils of persecuting the animists and shamanic peoples, then the rising adherence to Buddhism, and later, under first the Mughals, then the British.

Peace, it has been said, is the natural consequence of trade. It might also be said that peace is a prerequisite to trade, and since Bangladesh, from at least the middle of the 1^st millennium BCE, was probably a vital link in a worldwide trade route between South and South East Asia, Arabia and Europe, and the Empires of Central and Eastern Asia, the peoples and kings and chiefs along the Brahmaputra River wanted to take no risks with the very remunerative trade that flowed along that river.

Kusumba Mosque, Naogaon

It was certainly that trade that brought the earliest converts to the Silk Road from which so many Arabian merchants made their living.

What appears to be the remains of a mosque, the dating plaque of which tells of its construction in 701 CE, just 69 years after the Holy Prophet’s death, has been found at Lalmonirhat in the north of Bangladesh.

It stands at the junction of the Brahmaputra and Teesta rivers, which continued to be a major communications centre, right up to the age of the railway. With a choice of routes into Central Asia, along the Teesta to Sikkim, and over the mountain pass into Tibet, or along Brahmaputra to northern Assam, then by well-trodden road through upper Myanmar into Yunnan Province of China, both the ancient Tibetan Empire, and that of China and Mongols could be reached.

It was in ‘the peace of the Silk Road’ that it appears that Buddhism flourished, and took its beliefs by the Silk Road into Central and Eastern, even South Eastern Asia, and there is no doubt that the same route carried Islam, from earliest times, to China, where it became an important part of the development of science studies, and into Central Asia.

In Bangladesh, the earliest traders, some of whom no doubt settled in the flourishing cities along the Brahmaputra, and where converts were also doubtless made, the stories of the civilisation that certainly flourished along the Road, and such as the 2^nd Century map of Ptolemy, the Greek cartographer, and 12^th Century Islamic mapping no doubt motivated the Sufi missionaries, from Yemen, Persia, Turkey and across the Islamic world of the Middle Ages to travel and spread the word.

60 Dome Mosque, Bagerhat

In the early 13^th Century came the first real invaders, originating in Afghanistan, where they would certainly be aware of fabled wealth of this rival trade route, seized the mouth of Brahmaputra and the lands around it. Others followed. Indeed, in the 15^th Century, there was a Sultan originating in Abyssinia. By the middle of the 16^th Century, the Mughals arrived, reached a settlement with their Afghan rivals, and the age of Islam had truly arrived in Bangladesh.

There are many fine mosques across the country that bear testimony to the art and skills of the period of Muslim domination, but that rule was not to last.

The wealth of the Silk road attracted Europeans, first the Portuguese, in mid-16^th Century, followed by the French, the Dutch and the British, all of whom, however, also understood that, whilst they might scrap amongst themselves, attacking the trade on the Brahmaputra, or those who carried out the trade, was in no one’s interests.

It remained for the 1947 partition of India for Muslim domination of the land to return. But by then, the Empires of the East had disappeared, and there was only local trade left, and following partition, the trade along Brahmaputra even into Assam, even that disappeared.

It may be that, in the coming years, there will be a reversal of fortunes, as India, Nepal and Bhutan seek access to the sea, and the Chinese seek harbour facilities on the Bay of Bengal. But one thing is certain; Islam will continue to be the faith of most Bangladeshis.

SONADIA. DISAPPEARING ISLAND

Remains of a Giant Turtle and a star fish in the beaches of Sonadia, Coxs' Bazar

It isn’t hard to find quotations to support the thesis that history has a habit of repeating itself.

Whilst Karl Marx’ famous observation that ‘History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce’ may appear to many of us the most prophetic, it is the quotation that ‘ Each time history repeats itself the price goes up’ that may seem more appropriate in the case of the lovely Sonadia Island off Cox Bazar.

A giant turtle, lay lifeless in the beaches of Sonadia

In usually clear blue waters, filtered by the regularly appearing then disappearing sand banks that surround this lovely tropical sandy paradise, porpoises can be watched at play, and where turtles struggle ashore for egg laying, evening brings the return of thousands of sea birds. On the beaches can be found cowries and oyster shells, and an unusually interesting flotsam and jetsam.

All of which is doomed to vanish, under an agreement for China to develop a deep water port that will link with road and rail developments under negotiation between the neighbouring countries of India, Myanmar and Bangladesh, with China.

Red Crab

What of history repeating itself? Well, it was to the coast of Bangladesh that invaders came from Afghanistan in 12^th Century CE, and from Persia, Iraq and Turkey in 16^th Century, to take possession of the gateway to the great trade route, the Southwest Silk Road, that from at least 5^th Century BCE had linked south and central Asia, and offered traders for much further afield, Arabia and Europe, a road for commerce between the great and growing Empires of South, East, and West.

Surfing and life saving club of Sonadia

And in the 16^th and 17^th Centuries of the Common Era, it also brought to these shores the Portuguese, the British, the French and the Dutch, of whom, in the end, it was, of course, the British who  ‘scooped the pool’ of the wealth generated by the trade.

It was the great Brahmaputra itself that was then the gateway between South and Central Asia, and although this time around it seems that Sonadia will be at the gateway, there is little doubt that, this time around, the price will, indeed, have gone up. Both environmentally, and commercially. Maybe socially as well.

WARI BATESHWAR. POSSIBLY THE FIRST MARKET IN THE WORLD TO USE COINAGE. BANGLADESH

Eight petal terracotta lotus, Lotus Temple, Wari Bateshwar, Narshingdi

The site of this ancient community, with its massive 5.3km ramparts, and its 600x600metre citadel, on the banks of the ancient Brahmaputra River, in Narshingdi, Bangladesh, is rated by Professor Dilip Chakrabarti of the Dept of Archaeology, Cambridge University, in his ‘Oxford Companion to Indian Archaeology; The Archaeological Foundation of Ancient India’ as one of the most important archaeological sites in the entire subcontinent.

Excavation site of the Lotus temple

Despite the fact that, thus far, excavation of only 43 individual sites within the rampart and surrounding area have been undertaken in the period of about 16 years that Professor S.M. Rahman of Jahangirnagar University has been ‘working’ the site, both excavated and surface finds are sufficient to suggest that Professor Chakrabarti’s judgement is not misplaced.

In itself, the site is clearly a major one in the history of civilisation in the region. But it is the setting, the location, that makes it far more interesting.

It isn’t hard to wonder why the Portuguese, the French, the British and the Dutch took such an interest in this remote corner of southern Asia. And the curious might speculate why the Afghan people should make the move to invade the lands to the east of the Brahmaputra in 11^th and 12th Centuries CE, or the great Mughal invaders of 16^th Century should not only come to an accommodation with the Afghans, but also reinforce the extension of the Grand Trunk Road, that in early 16^th century was extended to Kabul on the West, and Sonargaon, Bangladesh, in the East.

Findings of the excavation site

Then there is the matter of the fabulously wealthy Zamindari, administrators and tax collectors, both under the Mughals, and the British, although under the latter, their duties seem to have been primarily tax collection.

Despite the fertility of the rich, deltaic soils, this wealth seems unlikely to have derived solely from agriculture, from rice, jute and indigo.

Thus far, excavation has failed to reveal how Wari Bateshwar fell into disuse, to be buried for centuries, until, in the 1930s, a local schoolmaster, Hanif Pathan, began to take an interest in the significant quantities of surface finds in the area around his village. His son, Habibullah Pathan, continued the interest, and added to his father’s already extensive collection of artefacts, from pottery to beads, from weaponry to iron ingots, and coins to money cowries.

A Silver Coin from about 600 BCE

It may be reasonable, however, to speculate that it was the Afghan invaders who shifted to main focus of commercial activity from Wari Bateshwar, to what appears to have been their chosen capital at Mograpara, near Sonargaon, that itself, three or four hundred years later, became the capital of the Pashtun and Mughal period rulers of the lands of Bangladesh.

For it seems that Wari Bateshwar may have been the earliest gateway to one of the most ancient trade routes in the world.

The Chinese civilisation was built on Bronze, and tin for that bronze has been identified as originating from Malaysia. In 3^rd Century tombs in Yunnan Province of China have been found Money Cowries from Maldives. It is clear that there was, indeed, early trade from China to South Asia, and that trade was carried by a few possible routes. But that the Brahmaputra was central to two of the major routes is beyond doubt.

Near the northern border of Bangladesh, the great Brahmaputra meets the Teesta, and the Teesta led to one of the routes, through Sikkim and across into Tibet. This route was subject to winter weather.

A sitemap of Wari Bateshwar, Narshingdi

The second route continued up the Brahmaputra to northern Assam, where a well known ancient route into China crosses the north western corner of Myanmar/Burma. The route most recently famous as the one used by the Allies to supply the Chinese during WW2.

The most famous of the Silk Routes, of course, is that across Central Asia, but as Alexander the Great found, and later, the great Roman Army that tried to force a passage through Parthia, and lost every soldier to death or slavery, and as traders through subsequent centuries were also to discover, Central Asia was a problematic route.

More useful, more accessible, even to such as Phoenician sailors who shared their travels with Ptolemy, the 2^nd Century CE cartographer, who gazetted and mapped their journeys, found, was the ancient canal from Nile estuary to Red Sea, and across the Arabian Sea to Indus, or around the sub continent to Brahmaputra.

That the original Grand Trunk Road was built from Indus to Patna on the Ganges, in 3^rd Century BCE by the first Mauryan Emperor, was probably not only a matter of Administrative and Military convenience, but with the junction of Ganges and Brahmaputra, a commercial one as well.

A route for traders from Arabia and Mediterranean, by land or by sea, with simple access up the mighty Brahmaputra, probably explains the treasures unearthed at Wari Bateshwar. It also, incidentally, probably explains the ruins of an early 8^th Century mosque near the junction on Brahamaputra/Teesta, where whether using the Sikkim/Tibet crossing, or the Assam/Myanamar route, Arab converts to Islam could make their devotions.

Description of pit-dwelling

From the ancient riches of Wari Bateshawr, through the great Merchant houses and palaces to 16^th and 17^th Century Sonargaon, to the 200 and 300 room 18^th and 19^th Century palaces of the Zaminders that line the river banks of Bangladesh, and even the ‘stately homes of Britain’, built on the wealth of Eastern trade, from the earliest minerals, fabrics and medicines, to the silks and satins, muslins and linens, the gems, the bullion, the perfumes and spices, the learning and religions, and together with weaponry, and even ‘secret weapons’ like saltpetre, the basis of gunpowder, runs a line that is now known as the Southwest Silk Road. And Wari Bateshwar may yet prove to be the most enduring of the gateways, through which, perhaps, passed great religions, great learning, great wealth and even the earliest weapons of mass destruction. Not to mention such great ideas as money!

PARKI BEACH. CHITTAGONG’S BEST

Parki Beach, Chittagong

Bangladesh, with the 120km World’s Longest Continuous Sea Beach to lay claim to, tends to ignore the fact that it almost certainly has the greatest amount of sea beach for any country of similar size in the world.

As the Deltaic plain of the Ganges/Brahmaputra, and an array of other rivers that reach the sea from Himalayan hills, most of the country comprises alluvial outflow, which, on meeting the sea, becomes, silver sand beach. Not merely the estuarine waters of such as the Karnaphuli River, that reaches the sea below Chittagong, where mile after mile of the silver sand of Parki Beach vanishes into the distance, looking out across the offshore anchorages of ocean going vessels, and facing the Patenga Beach on the other bank, but vast tracts of coast, and especially the shores of the myriad offshore islands. The great rivers, too, offer up some of the most surprisingly lovely sandy beaches imaginable.

Boat Under Construction, Parki Beach, Chittagong

There is little to see at Parki, reached from Chittagong across the newly constructed , spectacular Karnaphuli Bridge, and by road past the Karnaphuli Fertiliser plant, except a few shacks offering un chilled drinks, and a row of toilets that cost 5tk each for use.

By contrast with Cox Bazar, 150km by road further south, the beach is less spoilt, and offering only about a dozen, well spaced out deckchairs, evidently in far less demand by visitors.

Just before reaching the beach, a small boat building facility, with finely planked, sea going vessels under construction, offers a further attraction, revealing an ancient craft tradition that might have been thought lost elsewhere.

A worthwhile couple of hours from the crushing heart of the thriving port and commercial centre that is ancient Chittagong, where there have been port facilities for over 1,000 years. But it would probably take quite some brave heart to bathe in the waters of the Karnaphuli below Chittagong!

TRIPURA PEOPLE IN BANGLADESH

Tripuran Indigenous, working with Hand Loom

The stroke of a bureaucrats pen in 1947, may have settled some disputation between Hindus and Muslims, but it left a number of families of indigenous people separated from their kith and kin.

Such a group are the gentle, colourful and industrious Tripuran people, of whom an estimated 20,000 remain in the Bandarban area of Bangladesh. Across the Indian border, some 30% of the population of the North East Indian State of Tripura are those kith and kin.

People of the Tibetan-Burmese indigenous groups, of whom a number of different peoples occupy lands in India and across the border in Bangladesh.

Originally from the Yanktse River area of western China, they migrated to their lands in the subcontinent, in most cases, more than two millennia ago.

For almost 2,000 years they were ruled over by the same Royal Debbarmas family, until royal rule became unfashionable in the Republics of India and East and West Pakistan.

A colourful, friendly and hospitable people, most have converted from their traditional Animist beliefs, to Buddhism and Christianity.

Whilst the men now tend to wear Bangla costume, or even, like most Bengalis, western clothing, the older women in particular tend still to favour their traditional, sarong like, Rignai, usually worn with a small breast covering, and about 12 inches of bead necklaces. In their homes, such older women still go bare breasted at times.

Indigenous Tripuran

Reduced to a minority population they may have been in their traditional lands both sides of the border, but theirs is a particularly strong history, which includes a period of ruling over the lands of the State of Tripura, and all the lands of Bangladesh that encompassed such cities as Chittagong, Noakhali, Feni and Comilla. Indeed, the latter town is where the last residence of the last Queen of Tripura still stands.

Traditional family groups, of from five to about fifty families still live in a traditional manner in hillside villages in Bandarban area. Elevated on stilts, their finely constructed homes are accessed by narrow step ladders, which are not easy for others to climb, and certainly not in numbers. It is doubtful if even the most agile tiger, that once roamed these hills, would ever manage to move its bulk up such a narrow step way.

Day visits are not hard to arrange, and there are villages within 90 minutes drive from Cox Bazar. Soon, home stays to experience the village way of life will be possible to arrange, too.

RAMU, AN ENIGMA

Bakkhali River, Ramu, Coxs' Bazar

 

Ramu, possibly a rather ancient town a dozen or so kilometres from Cox Bazar, is claimed by some as an early landing place for Arab traders in the years following the death of the Holy Prophet.

Bamboo Rafts at Bakkhali River, Ramu, Coxs' Bazar

The lands of this eastern part of Bangladesh have, for most of recorded history, been held by the Burmese people of Arakan, until finally seized by the British. But the possibility is clear that some adventurous traders seeking alternative safe routes into China, perhaps avoiding the taxes no doubt levied on such trade by those who help the entry point to the Brahmaputra and Teesta routes for trade with China, could well have landed and explored such alternatives.

The Bakkhali River is wide, and penetrates deep into the Arakanese hill lands. In one old document, a fort is mentioned and it isn’t hard to spot likely locations for such a development on the banks of the river close to the modern market town.

Carambola Chillies

The town has a large population of indigenous people, especially Arakanese, Rohingas and others, as well as the descendants of the Bengali settlers who began to occupy the territories under British rule.

A history of what may well be an ancient settlement, well hidden from the pirates who notoriously frequented these coasts from 17^th Century onwards, and protected by some kind of riverside fortification where, like so many parts of the world throughout history, local inhabitants could take refuge from raiding parties, remains to be researched and written. It could make interesting reading!

TANGUAR HAOR, SUNAMGANJ, SYLHET. SUSTAINABLE TOURISM IN BANGLADESH.

Tanguar Haor is just one of the many international attractions to be explored in Bangladesh. These include the 120km continuous natural sea beach; the Sundarban, the world’s largest mangrove forest which is home to the Royal Bengal tiger; and especially the world’s largest river system of over 700 rivers, branches and tributaries, which include the delta of two of Asia’s greatest rivers, the Ganges/Padma and the Brahmaputra/Jamuna.

Tanguar Haor is a 100 sq km wetland and ‘inland sea’. Home to over 200 species of aquatic plants, 140 species of fish, 208 indigenous bird species, 100 species of migratory birds, 34 species of reptile, and 11 species of amphibian, it is one of Asia’s most magnificent natural environments. It is already a veritable Mecca for dedicated naturalists and birdwatchers as well as photographers, and those simply seeking the tranquillity of such an environment. It is also a vital resource for both nation and continent.

Inevitably, it could be the visitors who will destroy what they seek to enjoy. In developing and supporting the development of tourism the key word has to be sustainable, ensuring, not only access, but also the protection of environment and wildlife, as well as the livelihoods of the local people.

Remotely located in the far north of the country, it’s very remoteness has, hitherto, protected it, but already a number of tour companies plan speed boat and launch trips into this paradise. One company, however, is building the first, environmentally sensitive craft in Bangladesh, with solar panels for night security lights, waste recycling and waste water retention as well as energy efficient engines.

The craft will accommodate, in international 3 star cabins with a/c and h/c bathrooms attached, up to 26 tourists, though more can be accommodated for study tours with students. Catering on board will be provided by the local communities, as will other supplies, to ensure that they also share in the economic benefits of the initiative.

This approach is an innovative one in Bangladesh, much of whose outstanding natural environment is already under threat. Tiger Tours