|
To the millions who trek to the famous
Ayyappa temple in the Sabari hills in central Kerala every year, the
shrine of Vavuruswami (a Muslim saint) on way to the temple is a sacred
landmark. The dargah is worshipped by pilgrims who climb the
hills singing hymns in praise of Lord Ayyappa and the Muslim saint.
Vavuruswami is considered to be one of the trusted followers of God
Ayyappa. It is the prerogative of the Muslim custodians of the shrine to
await the pilgrims and guide them to the hill temple above during the
pilgrim season.
The Baba Budan Hills in
Karnataka State is a pilgrimage centre sacred to Hindus and Muslims
alike and is known to the pious as Peta. Muslims revere the shrine as
the tomb of a saint, while Hindus associate it with Lord Dattarreya. The
sacred place is managed by a Muslim. But at the famous Haji Malang
shrine of the Muslims near Mumbai, the shrine on the hill is managed by
Hindus, the descendants of the early disciples of Saint Malang. This dargah,
sacred to millions in Maharashtra, is under Hindu management
although Muslim maulvis assist in its upkeep. At the well known
Sai Baba shrine at Shirdi, one positively invites angry stares if the
pilgrims are referred to as Hindus or Muslims. For, the great saint, to
quote the disciples, "lived in a dilapidated mosque in the village.
He uttered the words Allah Malik (God is Lord) as fervently as he sang bhajans".
Under his great influence the village people agreed to celebrate the
Muslim fair and Ramanavami festival on the same day. When his disciples
collected money to repair the old mosque in which he lived, the saint
refused to permit the renovation till all the temples in the area were
repaired first. A sacred fire kindled by the saint (who passed away in
1918) at the mosque is still kept burning and the ceremonies on Thursday
nights include a colourful palanquin procession of the saint’s picture
from the village temple to the local mosque.
Records at many South
Indian temples show that Tipu Sultan and his father Hyder Ali had great
respect for Hindu shrines. In their capital of Seringapatnam, the
centuries old temple of Sriranganatha was well cared for the famous
Nanjundeswara deity at the historic temple at Nanjangud in Karnataka is
known as ‘Hyder Ali Lingam’ as the idol was gifted to the temple by
Hyder Ali. Another great shrine, famous in south India, is the temple
dedicated to Thuluka Nachiar or Turkish Goddess in the temple of
Srirangam. The deity is actually a Muslim princess, whose father had
taken away the Vishnu image from a Hindu shrine. The princess had fallen
in love with the image and when the Hindu priests guided by a
supernatural dream came to take away the idol, she refused to part with
it. Finally, ordered by her father to give away the image, the
heartbroken girl followed the deity to the temple of Srirangam. There
she ‘disappeared’ into the sanctum sanctorum, as happened in
the case of Meerabai in North India. In honour of her great devotion to
God Vishnu, she is worshipped as his consort in the historic temple of
Srirangam, and strangely enough, the ceremonial Naivdya everyday
at her shrine is ‘bread and butter’ normally taboo in orthodox Hindu
temples.
The famous dargah at
Chettinad in Madras state is another shrine endowed with gifts from the
Hindu rajahs of Pudukottai and Ramanathapuram. Bava Fakhruddin
Auliya was a Muslim fakir from Arabia and during his wanderings
came to south India. Near the Vaishnava shrine of Tirukoshtiyur, he came
across some Brahmin girls, who were hesitating to pass through a dense
forest en route the shrine. The saint escorted them through the forest
and through his miraculous powers is said to have blinded a gang of
dacoits, who tried to molest the party. Further, the saint is said to
have created a tank with his divine powers to enable the Brahmin girls
to quench their thirst. His tomb, known as Kattu Bava Dargah, is
sacred to both Hindus and Muslims.
In North India, the
tomb of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti at Ajmer attracts thousands of pilgrims
from all over the world and often there are more non-Muslim worshippers
at the shrine than Muslims Hindu shopkeepers near the tomb place their
shop keys at the steps to the dargah before commencing their
daily business and the sandalwood paste for the dargah is
prepared every day by a Brahmin, whose family has been devotees at the dargah
for centuries. While music before mosques had sparked many communal
riots in other parts of India, at the dargah in Ajmer a shehnai
is played everyday as in a temple and the distribution of the alms
is the same as the prasad in countless shrines of Hinduism.
In Delhi itself the annual festival of
flower sellers or Phulwalon-ki-sair at the Muslim shrine at Mehrauli is
an intercommunal affair. These sacred places, distributed all over India
symbolise the fact that communal harmony is a national heritage handed
down through the centuries. (MF)
|