Mecca Masjid: a socio-political, religious and anti-colonial sanctuary

For hundreds of years, the Mecca Masjid, with its lofty 75-foot ceiling, sprawling courtyard, and the cover below which members of the Asafiya dynasty are buried, has borne witness to the shifting tides of socio-political fortunes. One of many largest mosques in India, it has lengthy served as a socio-political and non secular centre. Within the princely State of Hyderabad, the masjid performed a pivotal position as a platform advocating the nation’s freedom from British colonial rule, culminating within the Turrabaz Khan-led assault on the British Residency. Publish-1948, following the annexation of Hyderabad and its subsequent merger with the Indian Union, it remained a vital area for affirming the political company of Hyderabad’s Muslims. It sought to instil confidence amongst them by means of Youm-ul-Quran, a collection of public conferences held on each Friday throughout Ramzan.

The 12 months was 1958. Almost a decade after Operation Polo, Abdul Wahed Owaisi, a lawyer, took over the reins of the Ittehadul Muslimeen. Dubbed a revival, and later, basis, of the Majlis, Owaisi remodeled the organisation into an entity that actively participated in electoral politics, and aligned itself with constitutional rules. It was throughout this era that Youm-ul-Quran on the Mecca Masjid started to take form.

“The thought was to provide Muslims the arrogance they lacked, as they had been nonetheless feeling the results Police Motion (which means Operation Polo),” says Syed Ahmed Pasha Qadri, common secretary of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen, and a former legislator from Charminar and Yakutpura. “Muslims at the moment had been anxious and afraid. Abdul Wahed Owaisi, father of Salahuddin Owaisi, used the Quran and Hadith (traditions of Prophet Muhammad) to clarify what to do within the present context. And to inform people who the Structure grants us the rights of equal, respectable residents of India. Now, AIMIM president Asaduddin Owaisi continues this custom,” he says.

On the time, the Mecca Masjid was below the administration of the Endowments Division. It was solely within the Nineteen Nineties that the Minorities Welfare Division took over its upkeep and administration.

One of many largest mosques in India, the Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad has lengthy served as a socio-political and non secular centre.
| Picture Credit score:
SIDDHANT THAKUR

“All Jalsa Youm-ul-Quran conferences are organised solely after acquiring permission from the authorities,” Mr Qadri explains.

For over six many years, speeches have been delivered from a white marble-clad a mimbar, a stepped platform, earlier than hundreds who collect below a pandal put in within the courtyard.

With altering occasions got here political dissent. Aman Ullah Khan, a distinguished chief of the AIMIM, fell out with occasion supremo and then-Hyderabad parliamentarian Salahuddin Owaisi. Breaking away, he fashioned the Majlis Bachao Tehreek (MBT), contested from the Chandrayangutta Meeting phase, and received. With this, he too staked declare to a speaker’s slot at Youm-ul-Quran on behalf of his occasion.

“The MBT was fashioned in April 1992, and Aman Ullah Khan sahab utilized for permission to ship the Youm-ul-Quran deal with that very same 12 months,” says Amjed Ullah Khan, MBT spokesperson and a former Meeting candidate from Yakutpura. “He was additionally involved with presenting the appropriate picture of Islam and Muslims to individuals of different religions. Moreover, he sought to familiarise the youth with Islamic scriptures.”

Whereas discussions at Youm-ul-Quran have included encouragement of interfaith concord, the significance of fulfilling familial and social obligations, respecting ladies, and changing into higher sons, and open condemnation of terrorist organisations such because the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), now identified merely because the Islamic State, the occasion has additionally served as a platform for launching political assaults on rivals.

The Jalsa Youm-ul-Quran is now unfold over a community of smaller masjids as nicely.

Anti-colonial exercise

Whereas an ally of the Crown, Hyderabad on a number of events served as a fertile floor for anti-colonial exercise. Whereas Mubariz-ud-Dowlah, the brother of the sixth Nizam Nasir-ud-Dowlah was an avowed anti-British, the primary Struggle of Independence of 1857 broke out a couple of week earlier than the latter’s demise. A sense of “jihad” in opposition to the British pervaded Hyderabad. Data present that pamphlets and slogans started to appear and speeches in opposition to the British had been delivered in masjids, the Mecca Masjid being a hub.

“The Muslims have been knowledgeable to take their very own course. They need to collect on Friday, twenty fifth Shawwal 1273, on the Mecca Masjid, and begin their agitation from there…” a copy of poster reads.

Mohammed Ayub Ali Khan, a Canada-based researcher of Hyderabad, factors out that being the central mosque of the town, Mecca Masjid had at all times served as a website of reassurance and confidence for Hyderabadi Muslims.

“The mimbar is solely used for spiritual preaching, whereas the courtyard is used to debate each non secular and temporal issues. 1857 was an vital 12 months when the ‘rebels’ rallied the devoted by interrupting the khutba (Friday sermon),” he says.

Data present that Moulvi Akbar, a distinguished preacher was stopped from delivering the sermon. Different information additionally point out that “requirements of religion” and non secular slogans directed in opposition to the British had been raised within the masjid. Newspaper reviews from these days recorded that one other disturbance related to the unrest broke out within the masjid however was put down by Salar Jung’s males.