Travel at Ahsan Manzil

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.