Faith burns bright at this ancient mosque near Tiruchi’s Fort Station

Discover the historic Makkah Masjid in Tiruchi, Tamil Nadu, dating back to 734 A.D., maintained by generations of caretakers.

Tucked away next to a carpentry workshop on Tiruchi’s Fort Station Road is what is considered to be one of the oldest Islamic places of worship in Tamil Nadu: the Makkah Masjid that dates back to the year 116 of the Al-Hijri calendar, corresponding to 734 A.D.

The family of M.G.A.R. Abdul Rahman, a cloth merchant in Tiruchi, has been taking care of the property for several generations. The mosque’s age is validated by an inscribed stone tablet in Arabic above the ‘mihrab’ (the niche that indicates the ‘qibla’ or direction of prayer). The graves of Mohamed Ibrahim, Hazrat Haji Abdullah, Hazrat Haji Mohamed Anwar, Ahmed Kabir, and Tahira Biwi, thought to be pious Muslims of yore, are also to be found here. Two recently added minarets indicate the mosque’s presence in this quiet part of town.

“Until the 1980s, the mosque was very different from what you see today,” A.R. Mohamed Ghouse, hereditary trustee, and one of Mr. Rahman’s 12 children, told The Hindu. “When my father was bequeathed this shrine, it was surrounded by thorny bushes and palm trees. There was no road access; people would walk single-file on a narrow pathway to reach the premises. Since this is a low-lying area, the building would be flooded during the rainy season. Before we got electricity connection in the 1980s, the place used to be lit up with oil lamps and hurricane lanterns. We have been maintaining the buildings with the help of generous donors from all faiths,” he said.

The Muslim community has had a long and harmonious presence in Tiruchi since ancient times. The Makkah Masjid is a stone’s throw away from Hazrat Thable Alam Badhusa Nathervali Dargah, the mausoleum dedicated to a nobleman of Turkish-Syrian lineage born as Sultan Mutahirruddin in 927 A.D., in Suharwardy, near Samarkand, who gave up his privileged life to spread the message of Islam in southern Asia. It is said the saint stayed on the Makkah Masjid premises before he settled in the present site.

Mosques endowed by the erstwhile Nawabs of Arcot are also an indelible part of Tiruchi’s landscape. Woraiyur, the capital of the Chola dynasty from the 2nd Century (now a suburb of Tiruchi), was already known to Arab traders. After the birth of Islam, Arab-Muslim missionaries began travelling to the region. Biographies of Muslim saints and the local traditions of the period reveal that Islam spread in the southern part of India in a largely peaceful and voluntary manner.

According to J. Raja Mohamad, historian and former curator of Pudukottai Government Museum, the Makkah Masjid could have been built for the Muslim settlement that emerged in the Tamil hinterland during the Pallava rule. “When I visited the mosque in the 1970s, it was hard to spot because of the overgrown bushes. It resembled a small ‘mandapam’ (hall), built in granite, with six Dravidian style pillars that are square at the base, octagonal in the middle, and square again. The ceiling was also made of granite slabs. Though it has become more modernised now, the trustees have retained most of the old building,” he said.

While Dravidian-style granite mosques are present elsewhere in Tamil Nadu, the Makkah Masjid may be the only shrine with a contemporary dated inscription in the State as well as in southern peninsular India, he added.