Jump to content

Recommended Posts

Posted

Koom Kalan mosque back with Muslims after 60 years

Vimal Sumbly

Tribune News Service

Koom Kalan Khurd (Ludhiana), July 5

It is after 60 long years that the azan (the call to Muslims for prayers) has started reverberating in the skies of this small hamlet. The doors of the mosque were opened after it was handed over to the Al Habib Charitable Trust on June 25 by local residents led by sarpanch Karnail Singh Kelly.

The mosque was opened in the presence of the trust members, who included Atiq-ur-Rehman, Mohammad Usman and Mufti Jamaludin, besides villagers led by the sarpanch. Although there are no Punjabi Muslims living in the village now, there are quite a number of others who have come here from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar as labourers. They have now started offering five-time prayers in the mosque regularly.

The village had a sizeable population of Muslims till 1947. The entire population migrated to Pakistan after Partition. The mosque was converted into a gurdwara by the people who had migrated here from Pakistan. It was used as a gurdwara till 1971 when the locals constructed a new gurdwara there. Since then, the mosque had remained closed.

However, recently sarpanch Kelly, who is also the organising secretary of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee, decided to return the mosque to the Muslim community as a goodwill gesture. He told The Tribune most of the village population was born much after Partition and there was no bitterness among them.

Maulana Habib-ur-Rehman Sani, Shahi Imam of the Jama Masjid, said it was a great gesture on the part of the majority community. He said there were so many mosques in Punjab which were still closed. He hoped that these would also be returned to the community the way Koom Kalan mosque was handed over to them.

He claimed that there were about 25,000 mosques in the united Punjab (Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh) at the time of Partition. Most of these were closed or converted into temples or gurdwaras. However, over a period of time, about 4,000 mosques had been opened and returned to the community. The Jama Masjid of Ludhiana was also returned to the Muslims at the behest of Pt Jawaharlal Nehru.

Expressing gratitude to the Sikh community, the Maulana said it would go a long way in consolidating the mutual ties between the communities.

Posted

"Too bad the gave it to sunnis lol"

Not all the Masjids in Punjab were Sufi/Shia veer ji.

Many Sunni lived in harmony with Sikhs before the mind poisoning of the then politicians and dreaded partition.

This is a fact that you most likely won't find in many (or any) history books, but those of us lucky enough to have known and spoken to the pre-independance generation, know the brotherly love that existed in villages between all faiths and factions of all faiths prior to the hate propagandists spreading their unholy incitement.

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...