http://dharmaveer.blogspot.com/2009/02/muslim-accounts-gloating-over.html
(Left:
An oil painting of Babar - the founder of the Mughal empire, who
demolished the Hindu temples at Ram Janmasthan and erected a Mosque in
their place.)
To the western world, an iconic image of Islamic
aggression is the conversion of the Hagia Sophia - Eastern Christendom's
greatest church - into a mosque by the Ottoman Sultan Mehmet. It was
his first act upon entering the conquered city of Constantinople (now
Istanbul) in 1493AD.
It is relatively unknown in the western
world that a mere 35 years later, in 1528AD, his fellow Turk - Zahir
ud-din Babar, the founder of the Moghul empire in India, and a
descendant of Tamerlane - demolished one of Hinduism's greatest temple
complexes, and erected
a mosque in its place, which is known in India as the Babri Masjid
(Babar's mosque).
It is the purpose of this article to give my
western readers a glimpse into this act of destruction, and to provide
further evidence of
the compulsive aggression and profanity of Islam. Through
the centuries of brutal Islamic rule over India, tens of thousands of
Hindu temples were destroyed and mosques built at their sites. In
northern India, which was under Islamic rule for a longer period of
time, hardly any temple has survived the Islamic period. Among the
temples destroyed were the 3 greatest temples of Hindu Dharma - those
dedicated to Shri Ram, Shri Krishna, and Shankar, at Ayodhya, Mathura,
and Benaras (Varanasi), respectively.
Muslims kept fairly
accurate accounts of their temple demolitions,
since they considered them acts of great piety. By destroying the
temples of the "kufr", they were doing Allah's bidding, and imitating
Muhammad, who himself had destroyed all the idols in the Kaaba and made
it into a mosque. Muslim rulers throughout history have repeated this
act. The West knows of the conversion of the St. Sophia in
Constantinople into a mosque. Hindudom knows of thousands of such tragic
instances.
Given
below are some of the accounts left by muslim historians of the
destruction of the Ram Janmabhoomi temple in Ayodhya - one of the
greatest temples of Hindu Dharma. We will never know its splendour, but
judging by the temples of South India
that did survive Islamic rule, it must have been a stupendous feat of
architecture.
The muslim writers unanimously describe the following:
1.
The temple complex comprised of the Janmasthan of Shri Ram at Kot Ram
Chander, the private apartments (mahal sarai) of King Dashrath and Shri
Ram, and a temple and a kitchen popularly known as Sita Ki Rasoi, where
tradition held that Sita (wife of Shri Ram) lived.
2. All three were
demolished and a mosque constructed thereupon in 1528 A.D. under orders
of Babur's commander Mir Baqi, and the religious guidance of a Muslim
cleric named Sayed Musa Ashikan.
The earliest of such authors is
none other than the granddaughter of the Mughal (Mogul) emperor
Aurangzeb. Many of these Muslim writers were residents of Ayodhya
(Awadh) and some were eye-witness to or participants in the Hindu-Muslim
clashes that resulted from the numerous (77 recorded) attempts by
Hindus to regain control of their holy
site. Muslim records state that over 100,000 Hindus, over the
centuries, perished in attempts to regain the temple.
Let us now see what the Muslim writers have said:
1) Abul Fazl (late sixteeth century)
Abul Fazl, the author of Akbar Nama and Ain-i-Akbari
is an eminent writer of the Moghul age who describes Ayodhya as the
residential place (banga) of Sri Ram Chandra who during the Treta age
was the embodiment of both the spiritual sovereign supremacy as well as
the mundane kingly office. Abul Fazl also testifies that Awadh (Ayodhya)
was esteemed as one of the holiest places of antiquity. He reports that
Ram-Navami festival, marking the birthday of Rama continues to be
celebrated in a big way.
2) Safiha-i Chahal Nasaih Bahadur Shahi, written by the daughter of Bahadur Shah Alamgir during the early 18th
century.
Out of the above Chahal Nasaih ("Forty Advices"),
twenty-five instructions were copied and incorporated in the manuscript
entitled Nasihat-i Bist-o-Panjam Az Chahal Nisaih Bahadur Shahi
in 1816 AD, which is the oldest known account of the destruction of Ram
Janmabhoomi for construction of the Babri Mosque, and its author is
none other than Aurangzeb's grand daughter.
Mirza Jan, the author of Hadiqa-i-Shahda, 1856, Lucknow, has reproduced the above text in Persian on pp.4-7 of his book. The text runs as follows:
"... the mosques built on the basis of the king's orders (ba
farman-i Badshahi) have not been exempted from the offering of the
namaz and the reading of the Khutba [therein]. The
places of worship of the Hindus situated at Mathura, Banaras and Awadh,
etc., in which the Hindus (kufar) have great faith - the place of the
birthplace of Kanhaiya, the place of Rasoi Sita, the place of Hanuman,
who, according to the Hindus, was seated by Ram Chandra over there after
the conquest of Lanka - were all demolished for the strength of Islam,
and at all these places mosques have been constructed. These
mosques have not been exempted from juma and jamiat (Friday prayers).
Rather it is obligatory that no idol worship should be performed over
there and the sound of the conch shell should not reach the ear of the
Muslims ..."
3) Hadiqa-i-Shahada by Mirza Jan
(1856), pages 4-7.
The author was an eye-witness and an active
participant in the jihad led by Amir Ali Amethawi during Wazid Ali
Shah's rule in 1855 for recapture of Hanumangarhi from the Hindus. His
book was ready just after the failure of the jihad due to stout Hindu
resistance, and was published the following year (1856) in Lucknow. In
Chapter IX of his book, entitled Wazid Ali Shah Aur Unka Ahd ("Wazid Ali
Ahah and His Regime"), we find his account of construction of the Babri
mosque.
Mirza Jan who claims to have gone through various old sources says in his own account as follows:
"The past Sultans
encouraged the propagation and glorification of Islam and crushed the
forces of the unbelievers (kufar), the Hindus. Similarly, Faizabad and
Awadh(Ayodhya) were also purged of this mean practice [of kufr]. This
[Awadh] was a great worshipping centre and the capital of [the kingdom
of] Rama's father. Where there was a large temple, a big mosque was
constructed and where there was a small mandaf, there a small kanati
masjid was constructed. The temple of Janmasthan was the original
birthplace (masqat) of Ram, adjacent to which is Sita Ki Rasoi, Sita
being the name of his wife. Hence at that site, a lofty (sarbaland) mosque has been built by Babar Badshah under the guidance of Musa Ashikan... That mosque is till date popularly known as Sita Ki Rasoi..."
(see Annexure 3)
4) Fasana-i Ibrat
by the Urdu novelist Mirza Rajab Ali Beg Surur.
Dr. Zaki Kakorawi has appended an excerpt from this book by Surur (1787-1867) in his work. The excerpt reads as follows :
"During the reign of
Babar Badshah, a magnificent mosque was constructed in Awadh at a place
which is associated with Sita ki Rasoi. This was the Babari mosque. As
during this period the Hindus could not dare to offer any resistance,
the mosque was constructed under the benign guidance of Saiyed Mir
Ashikan. Its date of construction could be reckoned from [the
words] Khair-Baqi. And in the Ram Darbar, a mosque was constructed by
Fidai Khan, the subedar."
5) Zia-i Akhtar by Haji Muhammed Hasan (Lucknow 1878), p.38-39.
The author states :
"The mosque which had
been built by Saiyid Musa Ashikan in 923 AH in compliance with the
order of Zahiruddin Badshah, Delhi, after demolishing the private
apartments (mahal sarai) of Raja Ram Chander and the kitchen of Sita, as
well as the second mosque built by Muiuddin Aurangzeb, Alamgir Badshah,
[in fact] both these mosques have developed cracks at various places
because of the ageing character. Both these mosques have been gradually
mitigated by the Bairagis and this very fact accounts for the riot. The
Hindus have great hatred for the Muslims..."
6) Gumgashte Halat-i Ajudhya Awadh ("Forgotten Events of Ayodhya"), i.e. Tarikh-i Parnia Madina Alwaliya (in Persian) (Lucknow 1885), by Maulvi Abdul Karim.
The author, who was then the imam of the Babri Masjid, while giving a description of the dargah of Hazrat Shah Jamal Gojjri
states :
"To the east of this dargah is mahalla Akbarpur, whose
second name is also Kot Raja Ram Chander Ji. In this Kot, there were few
burjs [towery big halls]. Towards the side of the western burj, there
was the house of birthplace (makan-i paidaish) and the kitchen (bawarchi
khana) of the above-mentioned Raja. And now, this premises is known as
Janmasthan and Rasoi Sita Ji. After the
demolition and mitigation of these houses [viz. Janmasthan and Rasoi
Sita Ji], Babar Badshah got a magnificent mosque constructed thereon."
7) Tarikh-i Awadh("History of Ayodhya") by Alama Muhammad Najamulghani Khan Rampuri (1909).
Dr.
Zaki Kakorawi has brought out an abridged edition of this book. An
excerpt from vol.II (pp.570-575) of this edition runs as follows :
"Babar built a magnificent mosque at the spot where the temple of Janmasthan of Ramchandra was situated in Ayodhya,
under the patronage of Saiyid Ashikan, and Sita ki Rasoi is situated
adjacent to it. The date of construction of the mosque is Khair Baqi
(923 AH). Till date, it is known as Sita ki Rasoi. By its side stands
that temple. It is said that at the time
of the conquest of Islam there were still three temples, viz.
Janmasthan, which was the birthplace of Ram Chanderji, Swargadwar alias
Ram Darbar, and the Treta ka Thakur. Babar built the mosque after having
demolished Janmasthan."
8) Hindustan Islami Ahad Mein ("India is under Islamic rule") by Maulana Hakim Sayid Abdul Hai.
The
book contained a chapter on "The Mosques of Hindusthan" (Hindustan ki
Masjidein), giving at least six instances
of the construction of the mosques on the very sites of the Hindu
temples demolished by the Indian Muslim rulers during the 12th-17th
centuries. As regards Babri Masjid, he writes :
"This mosque was constructed by Babar at Ajodhya which the Hindus call the birthplace of Ram Chanderji.
There is a famous story about his wife Sita. It is said that Sita had a
temple here in which she lived and cooked for her husband. On that very site Babar constructed this mosque..."
It
is this Babri mosque, built as a symbol of the subjugation and
humiliation of Hindus at a spot they venerated so highly, that was
damaged by a crowd of Hindus in 1992 at the height of the nationalist
movement to rebuild a temple for Shri Ram at the site which had been
venerated as his birthplace by Hindus for millenia.
Islam
deliberately destroyed and desecrated what was most sacred to Hindus,
and replaced it with a symbol of Islamic victory. The same reason Sultan
Mehmet converted the Hagia Sophia into a mosque. The Hindus and the
West have been
fighting the same foe for centuries.
I end with the lament of Will Durant, from his Story of Civilization
"We can never know from looking at India to-day, what grandeur and beauty she once possessed."
All of that grandeur and beauty - laid waste by Islam.