Kala Masjid, Motijheel

The Kala Masjid, also known as the Jama Masjid or Motijheel Mosque, is a Friday mosque on the western bank of the Motijhil lake in Murshidabad. It was built around 1750 by Nawazish Muhammad Khan, whose wife Ghaseti Begum was Nawab Alivardi Khan's eldest daughter; the Nawab himself is said to have prayed here regularly. Ghaseti Begum brought up her nephew Ekramulla, younger brother of Siraj ud-Daulah, as her own son; when he died young, Nawazish could not bear the loss and died too, and both are buried in the mosque compound.

The mosque is rectangular, with a façade of three arches and three hemispherical domes, and octagonal minarets topped by bulbous kiosks at its four corners. It is a Monument of National Importance cared for by the Archaeological Survey of India.