How Many Muslims Mosques are disputed in India?

After a three-day survey in Varanasi's Gyanvapi Mosque, the Hindu side has claimed that Shivling has been found in the mosque. Both the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya and the Gyanvapi Masjid in Varanasi are said to have been built on the ruins of the existing temples there on the orders of the Mughal rulers.

In Ayodhya, the Hindus of Ayodhya took the support of the court demanding worship of Ram Janmabhoomi and temple instead of Babri Masjid. The matter revolved around this court and that court for fifty years and one day i.e. on 6th December 1992, the mosque was demolished.

Advocate Vishnu Jain, representing the Hindu side in the Gyanvapi Masjid case, firmly established the reports claiming the discovery of a 'Shivling' in the mosque. He further informed that the Varanasi Court has ordered to seal the area where the 'Shivling' was found.

“During the survey of Gyanvapi Masjid on May 16, we found a big 'Shivling' inside the 'Vazukhana' in the mosque. Immediately, we made an application to the court to secure this vital evidence. Court-ordered sealing of 'Vazukhana'," Vishnu Jain said on May 17.

How Many Mosques are disputed in India

Advocate Vishnu Jain, representing the Hindu side last year said that the number of disputed mosques and monuments across India at around 50, a 35-year-old Supreme Court lawyer, has also written several petitions calling for the demolition of mosques.

Jain said his "mission" is to challenge the legitimacy of the disputed mosques because he believes that many Islamic houses of worship were built by "demolishing" Hindu temples. The recent petitions by the Delhi-based lawyer are based on the findings of Jadunath Sarkar, a prominent Indian historian of the 20th century.

After this, the local court ordered to seal the place. The appeal of the Gyanvapi Masjid Management Committee can be heard in the Supreme Court today.

There are various theories regarding the construction and reconstruction of the Kashi Vishwanath Temple and the adjacent Gyanvapi Mosque in Varanasi. Still, there is little clear and concrete historical information, claims and anecdotes.

Question on the claim of getting Shivling

The Virajatiya Committee of Gyanvapi Masjid has rejected the claim of getting the Shivling and also objected to how some people reached the court even before the report was presented in the court on May 17 and the court ordered to seal the place. ordered. , The Lawyer for the Arrangements Committee says that they will challenge this decision.

It is being told that during the Gyanvapi Masjid survey, where Namaz is offered in the upper part of the mosque, a small pond has been made for performing Wuzu. It is being claimed to have found a Shivling in this pond.

On receiving the news of the Shivling being found on Monday, the Hindu side reached the district court and demanded to seal the place by preserving the Shivling. Accepting this demand, the court ordered the Varanasi district administration to seal the place where the Shivling was found. The court has banned the movement of anyone where the Shivling is found.

In fact, on the orders of the court, the team of commissioners appointed in the survey case of the Gyanvapi mosque complex will present its report in the court on Tuesday. Monday was the third day of the survey and the survey work had also been completed. The court had appointed Ajay Kumar Mishra, Vishal Kumar Singh and Ajay Singh as court commissioners.

Apart from the court commissioner, a total of 52 people from both sides were involved in the survey team and the entire process has been videographed. No team member was instructed not to leak the survey information. The Muslim side has lodged an objection that when the report was to be given on May 17, how did the talk of spreading the Shivling spread even before that.

On 18 August 2021, five women from Delhi filed a petition in a Benaras court. They say that they should be allowed to have darshan on the temple premises, worship and have darshan of Maa Shringar Gauri, Lord Ganesha, Lord Hanuman, Adi Visheshwar, Nandiji and other deities on the mosque premises.

They also demand that the Anjuman Intezamiya Mosque be stopped from vandalizing, breaking or damaging the idols of the deities. These women had also made a separate application in their petition and demanded that the court appoint an advocate commissioner to ensure the existence of the idols of all these deities.

After this, the trial court appointed local lawyer Ajay Kumar as Advocate Commissioner and ordered videography of inspection and inspection of the premises.

On 26 April 2022, Civil Judge Ravi Kumar Diwakar of Varanasi ordered a survey and videography of the mosque premises by the Advocate Commissioner. However, the Anjuman Intezamia Masjid, which manages the Gyanvapi Masjid, and the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board opposed the survey.

While appointing Ajay Kumar Mishra as Advocate Commissioner, the court directed him to survey the premises and submit the videography report.

The survey, which began on May 6, could not be completed due to a dispute over videography inside the mosque. The caretaker committee of Gyanvapi Masjid and its lawyers said that they oppose any kind of videography inside the mosque. But the lawyers for the petitioners claimed that they had a court order to do so.

The counsel for the Muslim side argued that the court had not allowed videography up to the courtyard inside the mosque and only outside the barricades. The videography of Gyanvapi Masjid concluded with sloganeering from both Hindu and Muslim sides.

Demolition of Vishweshwar Temple

The site originally contained a Vishweshwara temple, founded by Todar Mal along with Narayan Bhatt – the head of the most famous Brahmin family of Banaras – in the late sixteenth century.

Veer Singh Deo Bundela, a close associate of Jahangir, was a possible patron in the early seventeenth century and he renovated the temple to some extent. The exact details of the history of the temple and the site are somewhat debated.

James Prinsep painted the Gyanvapi Mosque as the temple of Vishweshwara, Banaras. The original wall of the now-demolished temple still stands in the mosque.

Around 1669, Aurangzeb ordered the demolition of the temple and began the construction of the Gyan Vapi mosque in its place. The base of the temple was left largely untouched and continued to serve as the courtyard of the mosque; The southern wall (with its curved arches, exterior mouldings and pylons) was also spared and converted into the Qibla Wall.

Among these surviving elements is the influence of the Mughal architectural style on the original temple.

Timeline

In 1991, the first petition, in this case, was filed in the Varanasi Court by the self-styled Jyotirlinga Lord Vishweshwar.

In 1998 the Anjuman Intejamia Masjid Committee filed a case in the Allahabad High Court. The committee, in its petition before the court, said that the temple-mosque land dispute could not be decided by a civil court as it was barred by law.

In 2019, a petition was filed by a person named Rastogi on behalf of the self-styled Jyotirlinga Lord Vishweshwar in the Varanasi District Court. The petitioner demanded that an archaeological survey of the entire Gyanvapi mosque complex should be conducted.

In 2020, the Anjuman Intejamiya Masjid Committee opposed the petition seeking an ASI survey of the entire Gyanvapi complex. In the same year, the petitioner again approached the lower court with a petition, requesting a resumption of the hearing as the Allahabad High Court had not extended the adjournment. (disputed Mosques in India)

In 2021, the city court ordered the Archaeological Survey of India to conduct the requested survey. In addition, a five-member committee of experts in archaeology was asked to be formed, consisting of two members from the “minority community”, to determine whether a temple existed at the site prior to the mosque.

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