Mosque in a muddle

The proposed project of building a large township and a grand mosque within it — even bigger than Delhi's grand Jama Masjid — in the Kozhikode district in Kerala by Kanthapuram Aboobacker Musliyar is in the eye of a storm. While Musliyar, president of Samastha Kerala Jamiatul Ulema (AP faction) and general secretary of the Sunni Scholars’ Organisation of India, envisages the proposed mosque and other allied buildings as a great place of Islamic learning, various socio-religios groups and individuals smell a rat in it and thus they are opposing it.

The mosque will be a part of the project named “Knowledge City Township for Islamic Studies” that would have facilities like IT hub, a super speciality hospital, medical and engineering colleges, schools, shopping malls, residential complexes and various other institutions. The mosque alone would have a built-up area of 250,000 sq. ft., far out-sizing the Delhi's Jama Masjid, informs Riyaz Ahmed, the architect and designer of the mosque. “The mosque, with an open-sky courtyard, is expected to be completed at a cost of Rs 400 million while the entire township project will cost around Rs 12 billion. It will be able to accommodate 25,000 people for prayer at a time,” says Riyaz. Besides, it will have a an auditorium for conducting seminars and a big library. People will get access to everything available for Islamic studies here. There will be permanent exhibition of Islamic cultural goods. “There will be a beautiful garden on the pattern of mughal gardens, and the entire complex will follow green-building concept,” informs Riyaz.

Musliyar claims to have a strand of hair of the holy prophet Hazrat Muhammad which he wants to keep in the proposed mosque to be built at a cost of Rs 40 crore. Musliyar says that he got it from Dr Ahmed Qasraji, son of former Wakf Minister Muhammad Qasraji. The holy strand would be the main attraction of the mosque as it is in the famous Hazratbal Mosque in Jammu and Kashmir. But not many people are convinced that the said strand of hair is of the holy prophet.

Just after the announcement of the big project, some organisations had expressed their reservations. But the project landed in a row after the statement of Dr Bahauddin Muhammed Nadwi, vice-chancellor of Darul Huda Islamic University, Chemmad, Malappuram, who claimed in a press conference that the strand did not belong to the prophet. He exhibited a letter by Sheikh Hassan Muhammed Qasraji, brother of Dr Ahmed Qasraji, who wrote in reply to a letter by Nadwi that the hair with his (Sheikh Hassan) brother was not the ancestral property of the family and that their father had not ever mentioned anything about the hair. He added that the “sanad” (the list of persons who passed the hair over generations, by which it can be known how the hair reached Qasraji) of the hair also was not clear.

Then more and more Muslim organisatons questioned the authenticity and “sanad” of the hair. Meanwhile, Kanthapuram said that he could prove the sanad if someone accompanied him to Abu Dhabi.

This made another controversy, and the opponents alleged that the project was in fact real estate business and the promoters were using the prophet’s name and religious sentiments for making money. Almost all major Muslim organisationsare now against the project on two grounds: one on Islamic beliefs and the other on commercial misuse of religion. Two Salafi groups conducted huge campaigns against the project, saying that preserving the prophet’s hair was not in the basics of the religion.

Jamaat-e-Islami “ameer” (chief) T. Arif Ali also spoke against the construction of mosque to preserve the hair. Sheikh Muhammad Karakkunnu, one of the leaders of Jamaat-e-Islami told TSI that they oppose this mission on three grounds. “Firstly,  there is no historical evidence of the said holy hair of the prophet. Secondly, there is no mosque, monument or even materialistic memories of the prophet in the world. And finally, we are against the use of religion and beliefs for commercial purposes. The proposed project is nothing but a business. So we are against it,” said Karakkunnu.

Onamballi Mohammed Faizi, secretary of the Samastha Kerala Sunni Students Federation (SKSSF), and Abdul Hamid Faizi Ambalakkadavu, secretary of Sunni Yuvajana Sangham, dubbed Kanthapuram’s claim of being in possession of a holy relic as “false”.

“It is difficult to follow a leader’s ideals, but it is too easy to iconise their mortal remains and to sell them. This seems to be the logic behind preserving the holy hair,” says Mujeeb Rahman Kinaloor, youth leader of Kerala Nadvatul Mujahideen. He adds, “There is no spiritualism in any knowledge city, cultural museum or spiritual tourism. They are pure businesses and the holy hair is one among them.”
But Kanthapuram reject all these allegations. He says that for the last 33 years the Markaz institutions are doing service to the community and more than Rs 1000 cr have been spent for the inmates’ education and other expenses. So, there is no question of business. “And we are not planning to build a mosque for worshipping the holy hair, but to keep the holy relic safely.” This is a change in his earlier strategy and stand.

The Indian Union Muslim League, now ruling partner and an important deciding factor in the state government, is also in principle against the concept of a mosque. But discussions and controversy still continue as Kanthapuram collects money for his project.

The story on this grand masjid is hit in Pakistani media too. The other communities in Kerala– Hindus and Christians– are  maintaining a silence as they feel that it's the community's internal matter.