Bangladesh's emerald country — a city ringed by 150 tea estates whose hillside gardens perfume the air, and whose 14th-century Sufi shrine draws more pilgrims each year than the Alhambra draws tourists
Sylhet is a city of 600,000 in northeastern Bangladesh, at the confluence of the Surma and Kushiara rivers near the Khasi hills border with India. The Sylhet Division is Bangladesh's tea-growing heartland — 150 estates covering 50,000 hectares producing the bright, brisk teas of the Sylhet type. The 14th-century Shrine of Hazrat Shah Jalal attracts 4 million Muslim pilgrims annually; the Jaflong tea gardens, Ratargul Swamp Forest, and Bisnakandi stone flats extend into the surrounding hills.
Sylhet was transformed by one of Bengal's most significant Islamic conversions: in 1303, the Sufi missionary Hazrat Shah Jalal arrived from Yemen with 360 disciples to lead spiritual and military resistance against the Hindu king Gour Govinda; the subsequent mass conversion made the Sylhet region predominantly Muslim. His tomb became a pilgrimage site immediately, and the pond's sacred catfish — considered spiritual descendants of those Shah Jalal fed — may not be touched or harmed. In the 19th century the British developed the tea industry, importing Tamil workers from South India; many Sylh…