This Pune Mosque Is Dispelling Prejudices Against Muslims And Islam By Inviting Everyone

¡®Chalta kya hai masjid ke andar?¡± It was a question 28-year-old Vikas Gavali had thought of often, but never ended up asking even his closest Muslim friends. ¡°There was always a fear. What if they felt bad,¡± he says. In December last year, Gavali confronted this apprehension of the unknown, when he visited a mosque for the first time in Pune¡¯s Azam Campus locality. He asked questions about Islam, and wandered through the white corridors and long halls covered in blue carpets.

Gavali was among the 350 people who visited the mosque in a programme helmed by the Pune Islamic Information Centre (PIIC). For the first time in many years, the mosque at Azam Campus, an educational hub, opened its doors to men and women from other communities. The idea was to allay doubts and dispel misconceptions around the religion and its practices.

BCCL

It is an initiative that is slowly gathering strength across the country. Apart from the Pune mosque, Al-Fukran in Mumbra (Mumbai), Masjid Umar Bin Khattab in Ahmedabad and three mosques in Hyderabad including the well-known Spanish Mosque have opened their doors for anyone interested in paying a visit.

The trend started abroad. Mosques in the UK have been holding open days for decades, but a concerted effort started in February 2015 when as part of #VisitMyMosque, 20 mosques held an open house on the same day. Since then, 200 mosques have joined the UK initiative. Similar campaigns are running in Canada and the US.

Karimuddin Sheikh of PIIC, who helped organise the weekend open house, knows the challenge he is up against. It is a toxic atmosphere stoked by fake social media forwards that allege mosques spread violence and hatred, and madrassas breed terrorists. The organisers tackled rumours spread through social media head-on with placards depicting the consequences of spreading unverified news.

Sheikh, who owns a sportswear manufacturing business, noticed the change in people¡¯s attitude some years earlier when he went looking for a home to rent and was refused repeatedly. ¡°Over the last six years we have organised inter-faith dialogues and seminars on festive occasions hoping to begin conversations. But the hatred spewed by social media has just taken over young people¡¯s minds,¡± he says. People would ask him, ¡°Why aren¡¯t mosques open for everyone? What are you hiding?¡± ¡°We felt that we had to take a more drastic step,¡± he says.

BCCL

Moinuddin Nasrullah, trustee of the Umar Bin Khattab mosque in Ahmedabad, has encountered the ugly face of prejudice often. He recounts how an elderly man walked away from him at a book fair saying, ¡° Tum logon se jitni doori banai jaye utni achchi hai (It¡¯s best to keep a distance from people like you).¡± The comment stung but also left Nasrullah reflecting about what to do. It took a year but the mosque hosted its ¡®Visit My Mosque¡¯ programme last month.

This is not all. Nasrullah is also trying to bring his community closer to the people. The mosque is active on Facebook and Twitter, using these to post pictures and videos of the open house and teachings of the Quran. Nasrullah hopes to inspire other mosques to use social media and increase public interaction.

¡°It was an eye-opener,¡¯¡¯ says Jignesh Dhanak, a 35-year-old cloth merchant who lives in Ahmedabad and visited the masjid with some friends. Many who had never been inside a mosque or read about Islam were surprised to find that namaz was read facing a wall and not in front of an idol. Arabic teacher Kubra Naik says that despite living together for so many years, awareness levels are still low. ¡°People don¡¯t really know each other. When I tell people my name or they see me in a hijab, I know they have reservations about what I am going to say. But when I speak about how it is important for us to live in peace their attitude changes,¡± she says.

BCCL

Naik is a volunteer with the NGO A Little Kindness Trust, that has so far conducted open days in three Hyderabad mosques. The most successful gathering was at the Spanish Mosque in August 2018, when over 2,000 people turned up.

Harsh Mander, who started the Karvaan-e-Mohabbat project as an outreach for Muslim victims of lynchings and riots, says the effort is touching but it must be the majority community that reaches out to others. ¡°The worrying part is that the present climate has legitimised bigotry. The more educated, more privileged Indians are far more prejudiced than those who are less educated,¡± he says.

However small, the organisers are hoping their efforts will have an impact. Pune¡¯s Karimuddin has plans to hold another open house in February while Nasrullah has been getting calls from other mosques in Gujarat for advice. ¡° Mahol ko badalna hoga, aur humme hi kuch karna hoga (Things have to change and we have to take the initiative),¡± Nasrullah says.