Dear Editor,
I refer to the Reuters mischievous article, “India Hindu group toughens stance on mosque-temple disputes,” published in the Stabroek News, (28/1/2024). The article makes mention of the “razing of the Ayodhya mosque,” as the BBC, New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and Al Jazeera have done, without any reference to the fact, as established by the Archaeological Survey of India and accepted by the Supreme Court of India in its 2019 judgment, that the mosque was built over a huge temple.
The article further goes on to say that, “Hindu groups have for decades said that Muslim Moghul rulers built monuments and places of worship after destroying ancient Hindu structures.” This is not just a claim. The evidence for the Hindu position is evident to the naked eyes in hundreds of cases, especially in northern India where Moghul (Mongol) religious persecution – of Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains – was most intense, a persecution boastfully documented in memoirs of several Moghul rulers themselves. For example, walking around the Gyanvapi Mosque – an interesting Sanskrit name for a mosque – one can see evidence of Hindu architecture. Interesting also to note is that a mere wall separates the famous Kashi Vishwanath Mandir from the mosque.
The razing of indigenous places of worship and other institutions and superimposing on them places of worship belonging to invading and conquering armies is not something peculiar to India. Historical evidence is replete with examples in Europe where the religious landscape is littered with pre-Christian pagan monuments that were either destroyed or converted into Christian churches and cathedrals. The best, living examples of this destruction or as some Christian sources euphemistically say “conversion” can be seen in Rome and Greece.
Wikipedia is not peer-reviewed academic research, but it does make reference to something that is universally and indisputably known when it says, “Eventually the prime sites of the pagan temples were very often occupied for churches, the church of Santa Maria sopra Minerva, literally “Saint Mary above Minerva” in Rome, Christianised about 750, being simply the most obvious example. The Basilica of Junius Bassus was made a church in the late fifth century.”
The same article tells us that in Greece, “the occupation of pagan sites by Christian monasteries and churches was ubiquitous.”
On the other hand, with the rise of Islam, the first casualty was the Ka’aba itself which was once sacred to Arabian pagans and polytheists. When Jerusalem was captured the Dome of the Rock was built on the Temple Mount on which could be found the Jewish Temple. Later came the Al Aqsa Mosque. However it was in Europe that the systematic conversion of churches into mosques reached a frenzy. Alphabetically, Wikipedia lists Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Cyprus where as late as 1974 following the Turkish invasion “church-to-mosque conversion” reached a peak. In Greece, there are scores of examples of this conversion. Many other European countries suffered the same fate.
Of course, the most recent example of this takeover is the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul, formerly Constantinople. Built as a cathedral as early as 537 CE in Constantinople it was converted sometime in the mid-15th century into a mosque and remained so until 1935 when it was made into a museum. In 2020, the Turkish government declared it once again to be a mosque. All Pope Francis could do was to express “regret.” After all, Christianity was guilty of the same iconoclastic sin.
Why then, is Reuters suggesting that this phenomenon of destroying temples and building in their place mosques is essentially Hindu one based on what Hindus claim? Herein lies the mischief that Stabroek News helps to perpetuate. Reuters being a European entity cannot be ignorant of what happened to pagan places of worship in Europe when Christianity became dominant, and subsequently to many Churches in the wake of the many Islamic invasions.
Travelling through north of India one is struck by the relative absence of any significant religious structure that predates the Islamic invasions. Certainly, none was allowed to be built after, and not a single temple was built in Delhi during the Moghul ascendency. This is not the case in the southern part of the country where some of the most ancient and grandest temples still stand. The reason for this difference lies in the fact that it was north India that faced the brunt of Islamic iconoclastic zeal. So contrary to what Reuters think, it is not a question of what Hindus claim or what they believe. Indian historians have documented as many as 40,000 that have been destroyed.
For now, some Hindu leaders are making the demand for the return of three such places of worship in addition to Ayodhya where we now have the grand Rama temple. The second is the complete restoration Kashi Vishwanath Temple of Lord Shiva. And the third is Krishna Janma Bhumi in Mathura where again a mosque has been built. Can the conflict that bedeviled the Ayodhya issue be avoided in these cases? We will have to wait and see.
Yours sincerely,
Swami Aksharananda
