Sherpur Upazila: History
Sherpur was reputedly named Sherpur after emperor Sher Shah Suri. However, according to Ain-i-Akbari, Sherpur was first established as the fort of Salimnagar, named after Prince Salim (later Emperor Jahangir), and served as a strategic Mughal frontier post before the conquest of south-eastern Bengal. Contemporary Persian sources referred to it as Sherpur Murcha to distinguish it from Sherpur in Mymensingh., whereas Murcha in Persia means battery. Tradition attributes the construction of a palace in Sherpur to Raja Man Singh during his campaigns against the rebel zamindar Pratapaditya. Sherpur remained an important town into the seventeenth century, appearing on Van den Broucke's 1660 map of Bengal, and later became a major administrative centre of the Rajshahi Raj. The site preserves extensive ruins of medieval mosques, palaces, and Hindu temples, including the Kherua Mosque, whose inscription records its construction by Mirza Murad Khan in 1571 during the reign of Akbar.