“This noble building is 500 feet from north to south and 300 from east to west, and 60 feet in height. It was formerly supported by 260 columns of black marble (later found to be granite) of which number, only 150 now remain. These columns are surmounted by superb cupolas, the whole forming a most beautiful Syrian roof executed with great ability and tastefully ornamented with carved work and flowers in the sculpture,” Major William Francklin, who served the British East India Company as a regulating officer at Bhagalpur (Bihar), wrote of the mosque in his journal in 1810, when he visited the site two years after the ruins were discovered. “Common description must fall short in the attempt justly to delineate the feature of this magnificent pile. It requires the pencil of the ablest artist,” he wrote about the 14th-century mosque in Malda district of West Bengal.