Maulana Madani instead stressed the importance of ensuring that all religious rituals remain free from political interference and be conducted and attended by religious people alone.
New Delhi, October 29: The President of Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind (Mahmood Faction), Maulana Mahmood Madani, has urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to refrain from attending the upcoming inauguration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya.
The Prime Minister has recently announced that he will attend the inauguration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya on January 22 next. After meeting office bearers of Ram Janambhoomi Teerth Kshetra Trust, he accepted their invitation to participate in the inauguration ceremony of the temple. In a tweet, the Prime Minister expressed happiness and said, “I feel very blessed. It is my good fortune that I will witness this historic occasion in my lifetime.”
Maulana Madani reiterated Jamiat’s long-standing position that the Supreme Court’s verdict on the Ayodhya dispute was flawed. He reminded that Jamiat had made its stance clear immediately after the judgment was delivered, asserting that it was issued without due consideration of the historical and legal evidence, based on incorrect principles, and on grounds that were contrary to both legal and historical facts.
Emphasizing that, given the circumstances, the Prime Minister should abstain from participating in the inauguration of any religious structures, Maulana Madani instead stressed the importance of ensuring that all religious rituals remain free from political interference and be conducted and attended by religious people alone.
Nearly all major Muslim organizations, including the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB), and Muslim leaders had expressed disappointment following the Supreme Court verdict in 2019 on the Ayodhya dispute, in which it had ruled that the disputed 2.77 acres of land, where Babri Masjid was demolished in 1992, be handed over to a Hindu trust for the construction of the Ram temple and directed the government to give an alternative 5 acres of land in another place in Ayodhya for the construction of a mosque as a replacement for the demolished Masjid.
The Jamiat along with other Muslim organizations, litigants in the case, refused to accept the alternative site for a mosque and filed a review petition, rejecting the verdict.
Following Modi’s announcement to attend Ram Temple inauguration, some Muslim leaders, including a Jamiat official from Ayodhya, have appealed to the Prime Minister to lay the foundation stone for an upcoming mosque near Ayodhya. However, the Indo-Islamic Cultural Foundation, a trust formed to build the mosque, condemned it.
Taking strong note of it, Maulana Madani asserted that the recent appeal in the newspaper directly contradicts the organization’s official stance on the issue. He issued a stern warning to all Jamiat officials at every level, cautioning them to refrain from making any irresponsible statements that deviate from the organization’s official position.
