AYODHYA: Member of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) Zafaryab Jilani He said Wednesday that the planned mosque in Ayodhya following last year’s Supreme Court verdict is against the Waqf Law and “illegal” under Shariat laws.
Athar Hussain, the secretary of a trust formed to build the mosque in Ayodhya, however, said that everyone interprets the Shariat in their own way and that when the land has been allocated under the directive of the Supreme Court, it cannot be illegal.
The plan for the mosque and a hospital to be built on a five-acre site in Ayodhya’s Dhannipur village was unveiled Saturday at the Indo-Islamic Cultural Foundation (IICF) office in Lucknow.
The IICF has been formed by the Uttar Pradesh State Sunni Central Waqf Board to build the mosque and other public facilities on the site.
“According to the Waqf Law, mosques or mosque land cannot be exchanged. The proposed mosque in Ayodhya violates the Law. It violates the Sharia law since the Waqf Law is based on Shariat, “said Jilani, who was also the coordinator of the Babri Masjid Action Committee.
Another AIMPLB SQR executive member Ilyas said: “We have rejected the proposal to accept land for the mosque elsewhere. We lost the title dispute and so we don’t need land for a mosque.”
He alleged that the Sunni Central Board of the Waqf was working under pressure from the government.
“However, Muslims have rejected this land in Dhannipur given in compensation. The mosque being built by the trust set up by the Sunni Central Board of the Waqf is simply symbolic.”
The issue was raised by MP Asaduddin Owaisi at an executive committee meeting of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board held on October 13. All members were of the opinion that the exchange of land for the mosque was not allowed under the Waqf Law and in turn “illegal” under Shariat law.
“The power of interpretation of the Shariya is not in the hands of some limited people. The mosque is the place to offer namaz. So what if we are building a mosque?” Hussain raised.
The disputed Ram Janambhoomi-Babri Masjid structure was demolished in December 1992 by “kar sevaks”, who claimed that the mosque in Ayodhya was built by demolishing an old Ram temple.
After a lengthy legal dispute, the Supreme Court, on November 9 last year, ruled in favor of the construction of a Ram temple on the disputed site in Ayodhya and ordered the Center to assign an alternative five-acre parcel to the Board. Sunni Waqf for the construction of a new mosque in a “prominent” location in the holy city of Uttar Pradesh.
By order of the high court, the government of Uttar Pradesh allocated the five-acre plot in Dhannipur of Ayodhya for the construction of the mosque.
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