-Professor R.Nath- It is shocking to know that while Ahmad Bakhari, the self-styled ‘Shahi-Imam’, invited the Prime Minister of Pakistan, he ignored the National Prime Minister, deliberately to insult and dishonour him, in return for the PM’s refusal to sport the typical Muslim skull-cap which Bukhari had offered to him mischievously; not only did he do this, he also publicly declared to have done this. Bukhari’s audacity, as much as his arrogance, knows no bound. The whole country remembers, he is the same Bukhari who admired the Taliban terrorists of Afghanistan and approved their vandalism and destruction of the ancient Bamiyan Buddhas, as reported in the Press (e.g. The Hindustan Times, March to May 2005) ! All this calls for an examination of his authority and antecedents.
(1) ‘Imam’ is an official of ‘masjid’ (mosque) who leads ‘namaz’ (prayer), particularly Friday namaz; reads ‘khutba’; and guides in religious matters. He is NOT owner of the mosque, not even its custodian; mosque is House of God (Allah) and it is not, and it cannot be, owned by anybody else, not even by the person who endows land, or funds for its construction. It is always a Vaqf property. Precisely, ‘imam’ is an employee, of the mosque-vaqf, like ‘mu’ezzin’ who calls for prayer (azan) five times a day, on all the 360 days of the lunar year!
(2) Mosque cannot be converted into a personal jagir (estate) or kingdom, as Ahmad Bukhari is trying to do, by declaring to formally anoint his heir-apparent and sending invitations to dignitaries to participate in the ostentatious ‘coronation’ ceremony on 22 November 2014. The Jami’ Masjid of Delhi, or it ‘imamat’, is NOT, and cannot be, his private property or kingdom which could be bequeathed on his progeny: it is a public property. Any such succession-ceremony is illegal and absolutely un-Islamic. The claim he has been making:
“My forefathers spent their own money to buy land around Jama Masjid. They gave the land to the Wakf Board to develop it”
(as reported in The Hindustan Times of 29 May 2005), is not only bogus, it is absurd. The Jami’ Masjid Delhi was built on the ‘Bhojala-Pahadi’ site which was a khalsa (sarkari) land and was owned by the ruling Mughal King Shah Jahan who built mosques throughout the Mughal Empire only on the khalsa, or legitimately acquired lands. For example, the contemporary historian ‘Abd’al-Hamid Lahauri recorded in his Persian history, the Badshah-Namah that the land for the Jami’ Masjid Agra was duly acquired by paying 10-15 times of the market price, to their owners (Badshah-Namah, Asiatic Society Calcutta, 1866-68, Vol.I, Part-II, p.252); and the land for the Taj Mahal was also legitimately acquired in lieu of four havelis (ibid, Vol.II, p.403), with the observation:
“az-ruye ehitiyat ki dar jamaye’ shivan khasusa aswar diniy-na-guzirast”
(a free or forcibly acquired land, was not permissible by his religion). This was strictly in compliance of the Hadith (hadiths are traditions of the Prophet, second only to the Quran, in authority) that the Prophet acquired land for the First Mosque of Islam which he built at Madina viz. the Masjid-un-Nabi, in 622 A.D. by paying ten dinars, as its price, to its owners (and refused to accept it freely) (R.Nath, Mosque Architecture (from Medina to Hindustan, 622-1654 A.D.) (Jaipur 1994) pp. 9-16). Bukhari’s claim is, therefore, altogether false.
(3) His other claim, based on a forged farman (Royal Decree)(which nobody has seen, and which has yet to be examined, both on the obverse and reverse sides), that there was NO scholar in Mughal India competent to be appointed ‘Imam’ of the Jami’ Masjid of Delhi and, therefore, his ancestor was invited from Bukhara on the condition that ‘imamat’ shall be hereditarily vested in his family, is also equally false and bogus. It has absolutely no sense in view of the contemporary historical records. Lahauri, Shah Jehan’s court historian, has given a long biographical list of ‘mashayakh’ (religious divines), ‘ulema (learned men: imams, mullas and maulvis), ‘hikma’ (doctors), ‘shu’ara’ (poets) and other intellectuals of his reign (Badshah-Namah, ibid, Vol.I Part-II, pp.292-328 and Vol.II, 711, 713), testifying that there was NO dearth, in Mughal India, of learned men for this appointment and there was absolutely no need to invite someone from outside the country. It is all a profitable myth planted by Bukhari, of which there is NO historical confirmation: no ancestor of Bukhari has been mentioned, as such, in these contemporary biographical sketches, or in any historical work. It is important to note, in this connection, that no office, rank, post or position was hereditary, in any case, under the Mughal government, and the law of Escheat was in operation, e.g. son of a panjhazari (mansabdar of 5000) began, that too by the grace of the King, as a yak-sadi (100), and an incompetent son of Vazir (Prime Minister) had no way except to become Sufi and join some khanqah !
(4) His father, the Late ‘Abdullah Bukhari, was a simple and honest man who did not pretend to be more than what he actually was: an employee of the Delhi Vaqf Board. He used to sit beneath the southern minar (of the Jami’ Masjid) and sell one rupee tickets to the visitors to go up the minar for enjoying a panoramic view of the city. Obviously, this farman was NOT THEN in existence and it is the workmanship of Janab Ahmad Bukhari Sahib. Otherwise, he must produce it and let the historians examine its veracity and authenticity.
(5) The Jami Majid Delhi, and the matters related to it, have been graphically described by another contemporary historian Muhammad Salih Kambo in his Persian history : ‘Amal-i-Salih’ (also called ‘Shah-Jahan-Namah’) (Persian text edited by Ghulam Yazdani, the Asiatic Society Calcutta, Vol.III fas.I, 1928, pp.51-55). He does not, even remotely, allude to any such incident and does not mention name of any “Bukhari’.
(6) Syed Ahmad Khan (celebrated Muslim Scholar of 19th century and the founder of Aligarh Muslim University) authored and published his Urdu work: Athar’al-Sanadid, in 1846 (tr. by R.Nath under the title: ‘Monuments of Delhi: Historical Study’, New Delhi 1978). Syed Ahmad studied the Jami’ Masjid Delhi (on the basis of all available Persian sources), under the heading: ‘Masjid-Jahannuma’ (the World-Showing Mosque) and recorded that it was commissioned by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, and was built under the supervision of Sa’dullah Khan, the Vazir, and Fazil Khan, the Khan-i-Saman (Incharge of Stores), but he does not mention any ‘Bukhari’, at all !
(7) The Jami Masjid Delhi passed through the worst days of its life when, in 1857, it was occupied by the British forces, namaz was stopped and it was ultimately auctioned and sold to one Lala Chhangamal. But there was no Bukhari on the scene, to come forward for its succour and relief.
(8) It was also noticed in 1916 by Maulvi Zafar Hasan in his famous List of monuments of Delhi (Vol.I, pp.142-148). Like his predecessor Syed Ahmad (1846), he gave text of its inscription and English translation. He also cited 43 works of foreign travellers and colonial historians who had written on this mosque, uptodate, but none of them mentioned any ‘Bukhari’. In the column on ownership, he noted distinctly and unambiguously
“Waqf Mutawalli, a Committee”
(Vaqf Managing Committee of the Mosque). Obviously, its ownership-cum-management was vested in an office of the community, not in a person or family. There is absolutely NO mention of any ‘Bukhari’ in any capacity. The Jami’ Masjid Delhi has been studied and described, in complete details, in R.Nath’s History of Mughal Architecture, Vol.IV, Part-1 (New Delhi 2005) pp.472-489, figs.7/18 to 7/21 and pls. 7/48 to 7/72, including uptodate corrected Persian text of its inscription (spread on ten panels above the facade-arches) and its standard English translation.
(9) It is pertinent to note that no office in Islam was hereditary, not even the office of the ‘khalifah’ and we know for certain that Abu Bakr (632-634 A.D.) succeeded the Prophet, and Abu Bakr was followed by Umar (634-644) and Uthman (644-656) (T.P. Hughes, ‘Dictionary of Islam’, London 1885, pp.263-269). ‘Ali, son-in-law of the Prophet, representing the hereditary principle, succeeded only as the fourth khalifah. The Sunnis rejected the hereditary principle, which was upheld only by the Shi’ahs. Bukhari should have the courage to assert that he is applying the Shi’ah principle of hereditary succession and is rejecting the Sunni principle of succession by popular choice, called ‘election’ in modern terminology.
(10) The office of the Imam is fully and entirely a religious one, but Bukhari is gradually assuming, and appropriating thereby, the political leadership of Indian Muslims, pretending to speak for, and on behalf of, the whole Muslim Community. He is under the delusion that the Muslims of India are still as backward as they were in pre-Independence ages. Obviously, he is tempted to politicise the ‘imamat’, of a sacred Jami’ Masjid, because ‘politics’ in India, under the Congress Rule, had become a very lucrative business. He is already very rich and can arrange such an ostentatious celebration: one wonders, how, by this modest ‘imamat’ job, could he amass so much wealth as to be able to afford such an expensive International event, like the marriage of the Steel Tycoon Laxmi Mittal’s daughter or son !
(11) It is amazing that the Archaeological Survey of India (A.S.I.) of the Government of India, under the Congress Rule, had been spending crores of rupees on conservation of the Jami’ Masjid Delhi, though it WAS not a protected monument under the Ancient Monument Preservation Act 1904, and it IS not a protected monument under the present Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act 1958. This is altogether illegal. Whom and why, the Congress had been, thus patronising, out of the way: the Jami’ Masjid or its Imam, has now to be investigated.
(12) Be it as it may, it is for the Muslim Community to OWN or DISOWN the ‘impostor’, as he is. They have to watch, carefully, if he is gradually converting the Jami’ Masjid Delhi into a ‘political akhada’ (arena), and destroying its original use-and-purpose, and its sacrosanct character ! What he is doing is ‘politics’ which has nothing to do with the religion of Islam, of which he professses to be ‘Imam’. They have to decide if this ‘imam’ is a ‘People’s Imam’ (Imam-i-Rayyat) or a ‘Royal Imam’ (Shahi-Imam), and whether he can be allowed to treat the Jami’ Masjid Delhi as his private ancestral property ? The People of India are concerned only as far as the bullying-activities of this self-styled and self-proclaimed ‘Shahi-Imam’ are detrimental to the National interests; or outrageous to the National honour, dignity and decorum; or in violation of the Constitution of India and the Laws in force.
Ajmer: 5 November 2014
Professor (Dr) R.Nath
M.A., Ph.D., D.Litt.
(Retired Professor & Head of the
Deptt of History & Indian Culture,
University of Rajasthan Jaipur)
09413617454
[email protected]
www.rnath.in