FIFTY-FOUR
pro-BJP Muslims were excommunicated and their marriages nullified by a local
Mufti after they reportedly expressed the view that singing of national song
Vande Mataram was not un-Islamic, a fatwa which has sent ripples in the community
in Agra.
While issuing the fatwa, Mufti Abdul
Quddus Rumi declared that singing of the national song “would lead them
(Muslims) to hell.”
It was wrong for Muslims to sing Vande
Mataram, the Mufti said, adding, those advocating the song were deviating from
the religion.
The fatwa also nullifies the wedding
of those ex-communicated. Muslims who statement in favour of the national song
should offer prayers to renew their faith in Islam and remarry according to
Islamic rites, he said.
That around 1963-64 one of P. N. Oak
articles published in some Gujarati papers claimed that all of Ahmedabad’s 1000
mosques were 1000 captured temples and the mains Bhadrakali temple was being
misused by Muslims as their Jama Masjid.
Since Muslims are tutored to find every
excuse to pick up a quarrel with the Hindus. This was quite a novel, unheard of
and unabashed plea Thanks to Allah, perhaps no building by laws of any country
demand that every building must be shorter than the local mosque. Yet the
Muslims everywhere are a law unto themselves. Their nurture trains them to be
on a perpetual prowl and keep up a continuous growl to terrify everybody and
force every non-Muslim to declare himself a Muslim that is how Islam was
spread.
On further effort they ascertained the
writer’s name as P. N. Oak and found out my address. The owner of the firm then
wrote a pathetic letter describing his anguish and shock at the Muslim demand
and requesting me to help him tide over the predicament by my historical
acumen.
The Ahmedabad Muslim got the shock of
their life. Never in history had they ever got such a stunning retort and
rebuff.
A
practical instance is provided by the description in Muslim chronicles of a
magnificent Krishna temple in Mathura which Mohammad Ghazni says could not have
been completed even in 200 years, and another in Vidisha (modern Bhilsa) which
could take 300 years to build.
Any
identifiable details in earlier records of what is at present known as Taj
Mahal, luckily, Babur, the founder of the Moghul dynasty in India, who was the
great great grandfather of emperor Shahjahan, has left us a disarming and
unmistakable description of the Taj Mahal, if only we have the inclimation and
insight to grasp it.
On
page 192, Vol. II, of his Memories emperor Babur tells us Pp. 192 and 251,
Memoirs of Zahir-Ed-Din Mohamad Babur, Emperor of Hindustan, Vol. II, written
by himself in the Chaagatai Turki. Translated by John Layden and Willian
Erskine; annotated and revised by Sir Lucas King, in two volumes. Humphrey
Milford, Oxford University Press, 1921. “On Thursday (May 10, 1526) afternoon I
entered Agra and took up my residence at Sultan Ibrahim’s palace.” Later on
page 251 Babur adds : “A few days after the Id we had a great feast (July 11,
1526) in the grand hall, which is adorned with the peristyle of stone pillars,
under the dome in the centre of Sultan Ibrahim’s palace.”
It
may be recalled that Babur captured Delhi and Agra by defeating Ibrahim Lodi at
Panipat. As such he came to occupy the Hindu palace which Ibrahim Lodi, himself
an allien conqueror, was occupying. Babur, therefore, calls the palace at Agra
which he occupied as Ibrahim’s palace.
In
describing it Babur says that the palace is adorned the peristyle of pillars.
Ornamental towers at the corners of the Taj Mahal plinth. “Great hall” which is
obviously the magnificent room which now houses the cenotaphs of Mumtaz and
Shahjahan. Further tells that in the centre it had a dome. Thus it is clear
that Babur lived in the palace currently known as the Taj Mahal from May 10,
1526, until his death on December 26, 1530, intermittently. That means that we
have a clear record of the existence of the Taj Mahal at least 100 years before
the death of Mumtaz (the so-called Lady of the Taj) around 1630.
Vincent
Smith tells us that “Babur’s turbulent life came to a peaceful end in his
garden palace at Agra.” This again is emphatic proof that Babur died in the Taj
Mahal. Taj Mahal is the only palace in Agra which had a spectacular garden. The
Badshahnama refers to the garden as “sabz zamini” meaning verdant, spacious,
lofty, lush garden precincts.
“In
the large octagonal hall (of the Mystic House) was set the jewelled throne, and
above and below it were spread out hangings embroider with gold, and wonderful
strings of pearls.”
The
octagonal hall of the Mystic House is obviously the central octagonal hall of
the Taj Mahal in which a hundred years later Sahajahan raised the tomb of
Mumtaz, and in 1666 Aurangzeb buried his father emperor Shahjahan. The Taj
Mahal is called the Mystic House because it originated as a Shiva temple
replete with Vedic motifs. The same building was also called the Great House
because it was a magnificent royal residence.
There
are two sepulchral mounds in the central chamber of the Taj which look like
Muslim tombs, and could very well be those of Mumtaz Mahal, one of thee
thousands of consorts of Shahjahan, and of Shahjahan himself. It is well known
that many such mounds are fake. Such mounds have sometimes been found on the
terraces of historic buildings where no dead person could be buried by one
chance. Another reservation is that no specific burial date of Mumtaz being on
record it is highly doubtful whether she was at all buried in the Taj. Period
is mentioned a between six months to nine years of her death. Such vagueness,
even after a special palatial mausoleum is stated to have been constructed for
her body, is highly suspicious. Manuchi, an officer in the service of the East
India Company during Aurangzeb’s time, has recorded that Akbar’s tomb is empty.
Who knows then whether Mumtaz’s supposed tomb is not empty too. In spite of
such weighty reservations we are ready to presume that the two tombs could be
those of Mumtaz and Shahjahan.
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