A contemporary mausoleum and community centre in Manikganj, Bangladesh, the Shah Muhammad Mohshin Khan Dargah is dedicated to the twentieth-century Uwaisi pir, or Sufi saint, who was influential in the region. Commissioned by Khan’s son and designed by the Bangladeshi architecture firm Sthapotik in 2022, the building is notable as a modern interpretation of the traditional dargah, or Sufi shrine. Built as an environmentally conscious, relatively small-scale structure, it employs local materials, natural light and ventilation, and incorporates elements from the region’s medieval sultanate architecture. Besides Khan’s own grave, the dargah also houses those of his wife, Begum Noorjahan, and his father, Shah Muhammad Ismail Khan Uwaisi. 

The dargah is situated in the residential neighbourhood of Shib Bari where Khan lived and taught his faith; it overlooks a pond and is surrounded by vegetation. It is a roughly cubical, red brick structure, with concrete used for the load-bearing framework and ceiling. A little over 7 metres tall, the shrine stands on a metre-high square plinth, which secures it against flooding and is ascended by stairs on one side and a ramp along another side. All four faces of the dargah consist of adjoining semi-circular turrets. The brickwork in the lower half follows the running bond pattern, while the upper half is perforated to allow ventilation and light, in a simple version of the jaali or latticework common in Indo-Islamic architecture. These turrets form the outer layer in a plan composed of a 6 x 6 grid of circles.

The square plan references those of traditional huts in Bengal as well as the most commonly used plan in historic Islamic tombs across the subcontinent. The dargah is inspired by the turreted, multi-domed mosques of the sultanate period, in particular the fifteenth-century Noy Gambuj or ‘Nine Dome’ Mosque in Bagerhat, southern Bangladesh, named for the nine domes forming its roof in a 3 x 3 grid. The same format has been revealed in the ruins of the eighth-century Noh Gonbad Mosque, Balkh, in northern Afghanistan. The Shah Muhammad Mohshin Khan Dargah multiplies this into a 6 x 6 grid of circular perforations on a flat roof, instead of domes, with a corresponding square-grid waffle ceiling on its underside. Each of the four faces of the building is inset with a simple, roughly 3-metre-square doorway at its centre, emphasising accessibility and intimacy over the grandeur often conveyed by traditional Islamic religious architecture.