Eminent Urdu poet Munnawar Rana has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to ask for a hospital to be constructed on the five-acre land given to the Sunni Central Waqf Board by the Uttar Pradesh government in pursuance of the Supreme Court verdict on the Ayodhya title suit.
Rana’s letter suggested that the hospital, once built on the five-acre land in Dhannipur village, be named after Dashrath, father of Ram.
For the mosque, Rana offered his own land in Rae Bareilly.
He has also called for a reconstitution of the Waqf Board, which is currently on an extension pending new elections that will be possible only when the coronavirus pandemic situation improves.
Rana’s contention is that any land given by the state government or that which is acquired by force, is not fit to build a mosque. So, Dhannipur cannot be the site of the new mosque.
Athar Husain, the spokesperson of the Indo-Islamic Cultural Foundation (IICF), which has been constituted to build the mosque and other utilities at the land, questioned why Rana, or any other Muslim individual or body, had not made any such offer during the court-monitored mediation process which went on from March 2019 to October 2019. “The one voice during the process was that whatever decision the SC made would be acceptable by all. To raise issues about that decision is akin to not honoring the wisdom of the SC,” said Husain.
Husain said that there was no fatwa on offering the namaz on a piece of land owned by the government. “Do people not offer namaz at airports and railway stations? It is the sajda (the obeisance) that goes to Allah and this has nothing to do with the place where it is offered,” Husain said.
“Mr Rana is one of the finest contemporary poets but he does not have political acumen. The statement has no locus standi. Now that things are settled, what is the point in raising such issues,” he said.
As for Rana's offer of land, Husain said, “It would be beneficial for the people of Rae Bareilly.”
