In mughal period, there was a summer house of Sheikh Enayet Ullah, the
landlord of Jamalpur porgona (district), in this place. Sheikh Enayet Ullah was
a very attractive person. He aquired a very big area in Kumartuli and included
in his summer house. Here he built a beautiful palace and named it “Rangmahal”.
He used to like here keeping beautiful girls collecting from the country and
abroad, dressing them with gorgeous dresses and expensive stuff. There is a
saying that, the foujdar of Dhaka (representative of mughal emperor) in that
time was fascinated to one of the beautiful girls among them. He invited Sheikh
Enayet Ullah in a party one night and killed him in a plot when he was
returning home. That girl also dedicated suicide in anger and sorrow. There was
a one damned cemetery of Sheikh Enayet Ullah in the north-east corner of the
palace yard, which was broke in the beginning of 20th century.
Probably in the period of Nawab Alibardi Khan around 1740 A.D., Sheikh
Moti Ullah, the son of Sheikh Enayet Ullah, sold the land to the french
traders. There was a french trading house beside this property. The trading
house became wealthier after purchase this property. In that time, french trader
could do business here without paying any taxes by a judgment from the emperor
Awrangajeb.
In that time, the French became very wealthy doing business here in
competition with the English and other Europian companies. They made a big
palace and dug a pond for sweet water in the newly purchased goods. The
pond still exist in the compound of Ahsan Manzil, which was called “Les Jalla”
in that time. In the English-French war, French got defeated and all their
properties was captured by the English. In the 22nd June of 1757, the French
left the trade house with a fleet of 35 boats from the river station of
Buriganga in Kumartuli.
In 1785, the English transfer the property to a French tradesman named
Mr. Champigni, and retaken it at 1801. According to Paris agreement of 1814,
the French claimed all their left properties at Dhaka, and in 1827 the property
was again returned to the French. For the increasing power of the English, the
French was forced to left subcontinent. They decided to sell all their
properties in Dhaka. So in 1830, the trading house of Kumartuli was purchase by
the established owner of Dhaka Khwaja Alimullah.
After some renovation work, the trading house became the house of
Khwaja Alimullah. In his time, a stable and a family mosque was added in the
compound. After his death, his son Khwaja Abdul Gani made a great do well to
the property, and named it “Ahsan Manzil” on his son Ahsan Ullah. In the east
side of the old building, he made a new building with a different design, and
also done great restoration work to the old building. Since than, the old
building was called “Ondor Mohol” and the new building was called “Rong mohol”.
In the evening of 7th April, 1888, a great tornado hit Dhaka city cause
great damage. Ahsan Manzil was greatly injured and abandoned. An English
engineer from Kolkata arrived here to examine the palace. He gave judgment that
except the “Rangmahal”, all other parts of the palace have to reconstruct. So
Khwaja Abdul Gani and his son Ahsanullah turned their full attention to recreate
the palace. Both of the building was reconstructed during that time with a new
design made and supervise by the local engineer Gobinda Chandra Roy.
The old French building was reconstruct to a two storied building
keeping similarity to the Rangmahal. A gangway was made with wood connecting
the first floor of two building. The most beautiful thing made in this time was
the doom, which made the palace so beautiful.
After the death of Khwaja Ahsanullah in 1901, the glory of Ahsan Manzil
was ended. His successors couldn’t continue the glory for the internal family
quarrel. They rented different parts of the palace to tenants, who actually
made it a slum. In 1952 govt. acquire the property and left in management of
the Dhaka Nawab court. In 1985, Dhaka National Museum acquired the goods and
made it a museum.
