In April 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s guest was King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud. The King is not only the ruler of Saudi Arabia, but is also the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. Saudi Arabia’s absolute monarch, who is a tweet-lover, has reigned since the death of his half-brother King Abdullah in January 2015. PM Modi gifted him a gold-plated replica of the Cheraman Juma Masjid in Kerala.
The PM tweeted on 3 April 2016 says : “In Thrissur district, Cheraman Juma Masjid is believed to be the first mosque built by Arab traders around 629 AD. Cheraman Juma Masjid is symbolic of active trade relations between India and Saudi Arabia since ancient times. According to oral tradition, Cheraman Perumal was the Chera King and a contemporary of the Holy Prophet. Cheraman Perumal went to Arabia and embraced Islam after meeting the Holy Prophet at Mecca. The mosque has an ancient oil lamp that is always kept burning and believed to be over a thousand years old. People from all religions bring oil for the lamp as an offering.”
A tweet by Prof. Rakesh Sinha, Honorary Director of India Policy Foundation(IPF), can also be seen on the official website of PMO : “ India bringing this mosque in focus. Narendra Modi ji did great thing. It will help world to understand cultural evolution and Hindu liberalism. It’s also 2nd oldest mosque in world, Hindu king converted temple in mosque for Muslim traders. Secularist textbook misses this.”
The early arrival of Islam to India was through the traders from Arabia and not “through the bloody invasions by holding sword in one hand and the Holy Koran in another” as being conveyed by some misguided people. The political Islam arrived much later, in 712 AD, with Arab invader Muhammad bin Qasim in Sindh, by defeating the Brahmin King Dahir Sen. It may surprise one how the early arrival of Christianity and Islam in India was through the land of Kerala which is today called “God’s own Country”. The present day Kerala was a sea route for the traders from the Gulf to Ceylon(earlier Sighal Dweep and now known as Sri Lanka), the ancient ports on Malabar coast played important role for all the traders, whether they were Jews, Christians, Chinese or Arabs. St. Thomas, one of Jesus’s twelve disciples, is believed to have reached Kerala in the year 52 AD. Even today the Syrian Christians take pride in their ancestors being the Namboodiri Brahmins. Kodungallur ( anglicized name : Cranganore) on the south western border of Thrissur district was the capital city of the Chera dynasty.
The Roman empire, the Chinese as well as the Arabs had a trading connection with various ancient ports on Malabar coast of Kerala. Dr. G. Krishnan Nadar in “History of Kerala” notes : “The Arabs came into contact with the natives and they took native women as wives. The union of the native women and Arab merchants produced a new race and they were called Moplahs, who speak Malayalam.”
Some of the historians like New Zealand-based Rakesh Krishnan Simha dispute whether King Cheraman Perumal and the Prophet were contemporary, but most of the historians, including A. Sreedhara Menon, who wrote “A Survey of Kerala History”, prefer to present the legends that they were not only contemporaries but did meet in Mecca, King Cheraman embraced Islam and Holy Prophet gave him new name i.e. Tajuddin, he married the sister of the king of Arabia, stayed there for five years and on his return journey he fell sick and died in Oman. Before his death, he wrote letters to his nominees to entertained Malik Ibn Dinar, who was not only an Arab merchant but was also a “sahaba” or a companion of the Prophet. A defunct Hindu temple or Buddha Vihar was handed over to build the first mosque in Kerala i.e. Cheraman Jama Masjid. Malik Ibn Dinar was the first Ghazi of the mosque, succeeded by his nephew, Habib Bin Malik. Both Habib Bin Malik and his wife are entombed at the Cheraman Juma Masjid.
The mosque follows the architectural style of the Hindus and is built using brass. There are carvings in the place where the Imam recites the Friday prayer or Jumuah. This is built in the rosewood pulpit in 629 AD, some three years before departure of the Prophet Muhammad(PBUH) from this world. The mosque contains white marble that is believed to have been bought from Mecca. The mosque is believed to have been renovated so many times. The President of India, Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam also visited the Cheraman Juma Masjid on 29 July 2005 and offered prayers. The followers of all the religions in Kerala continue to visit the Holy place to offer prayers and oil to the lamp.
The site where St. Thomas landed in 52 AD is just five kilometer from the mosque at Kodungallur, famous Bhagavathy temple is just two kilometer away, Mahadev temple and the old palaces of the Chera kings are 250 yards away. There seems to be real religious harmony.
According to 2011 Census of India figures, of the total population of 33,406,061 in Kerala, 54.73% of Kerala's residents are Hindus, 26.56% are Muslims, 18.38% are Christians, and the remaining 0.32% follow other religion or no religion. The most literate state of India has a track record of communal harmony barring some stray incidents of political rift. The Chief Minister of Kerala for two terms( 2004-2009 and 2011-2016), Ooman Chandy, has described the character of a Malayalee in a statement released some time back : “Kerala has been keeping close to its heart the teachings of its noble son and great social reformer Sree Narayana Guru, who exhorted the people to shun the way of divisiveness based on caste and creed.
Tolerance is an integral part of the Malayalee psyche. This is what prompted Cheraman Perumal, the 7 CE Hindu ruler based at Kodungallur, to give away land for building a mosque, the first in India. And at a time when Jews were facing persecution in different parts of the world, it was King Bhaskar Ravi Varma, who gave perpetual asylum Achandratharam(so long as the moon and stars exist) to the 8th century Jewish merchant Joseph Rabban. Aryabhatta , the mathematician, is credited with finding the shape of the earth, some thousand years before Copernicus. Shankaracharya of Kaladi, the great philosopher-saint of the country, bestowed Keralites with wisdom and logical thinking. All of these illustrious sons of Kerala guided Keralites through the centuries.” Do we need to add anything further?
