Where It's @

The second oldest
mosque in the world

Cheraman Juma Mosque now.

Browsing through the annals of the royal family of the Samudris (Zamorins to Western historians), the rulers of north Kerala from 7th century ad to the British days, I was intrigued by one paragraph:

There is the practice of receiving paan (betel leaf) from a Muslim woman when the Samudiri King ascends the throne for the first time and telling her, ‘I shall guard the sword (kingship) until my uncle returns from Makkah’.

This custom continued until the 1890s.

Why would a Muslim woman be given that assurance, I wondered. On checking with historians, I found that the 1375-year old (built in 629 ad) Cheraman Juma Masjid in Kodungaloor, Kerala, is India’s oldest Islamic shrine and the world’s second oldest Juma mosque, where the Juma (Friday) prayers have been held for the last 1375 years, since the days of Prophet Muhammad (ad 570 -634), Peace be Upon Him. The oldest is the Pro- phet’s Mosque in Medina, which is also His memorial tomb.

Kodungaloor was the capital of the kings of Kerala, and in the years 622 to 628 ad the ruler was Cheraman Perumal Bhaskara Ravi Varma. Cheraman Perumal is a title given to the seniormost of the rulers of Kerala. This ruler was visited by Muslim pilgrims, who, it is believed, converted the Perumal to Islam and persuaded him undertake the Haj.

On the eve of his renunciation of religion, empire and embarkation for Mecca, he is said to have divided Kerala among the many Hindu princes whose scions ruled it until 1947.

The founder of the Samudri dynasty, a nephew of the departing monarch, was one of the beneficiaries. It became a tradition for all his descendants to assert to a Muslim woman, as representative of the religion to which the Perumal had converted, that the new ruler was only the agent of the Perumal.

The mosque before renovation.

M.Hamiddulla writes in Muhammad Rasoolullah, quoting old manuscripts from the India Office Library:

"There is a very old tradition in Malabar, on the south-west coast of India, that Chakrawati Farmas (another name for Cheraman Perumal), had observed the splitting of the moon, the celebrated miracle of the Holy Pro- phet at Mecca, and learning on inquiry that this was a symbol of the coming of a Messenger of God from Arabia, he appointed his nephew as regent and set out to meet Him. The love for the Holy Prophet grew in his heart and he became the earliest Muslim convert of present day India."

Cheraman Perumal embraced Islam at the hand of the Prophet. This is corroborated by one of the Prophet’s companions, Abu Saeed al Khudri: "A king from India presented the Messenger of Allah with a bottle of pickle that had ginger in it. The Holy Prophet distributed it among his companions. I also received a piece to eat."

After conversion, the Perumal took the name of Tajuddin, though some chroniclers say his new name was Abdullah Samudri, in honour of his past.

He married the sister of the then king of Jeddah and settled down there. The Perumal wrote several letters to the ruler of Kodungaloor, seeking his help to pro-pagate Islam.

Unfortunately, while returning to Kerala at the direction of the Prophet, Tajuddin died at the port of Zafar, Yemen, but he asked his companions, including a number of senior disciples of Prophet Muhammad, to continue their journey to Kerala.

Perumal’s followers built the mosque after reaching Kerala. According to historians, the Raja of Kodungalloor helped Malik bin Dinar convert the Arathali temple into the masjid. Thus this mosque has the unique distinction of facing east, like all Hindu temples – while mosques all over the world face Mecca.

Also, unlike in any other mosque in India, a traditional brass oil lamp, like those found in Hindu temples, is used in the Cheraman mosque and the pulpit from where the Friday sermons are conducted is made of rose-wood with carvings similar to those in temples. There are two tombs, that of bin Dinar and his sister, inside the mosque.

For 1355 years, the Cherman Perumal Mosque retained its original facade.

In 1984, the local Muslim orthodox Jamaat which repaired the building, wished to design a more Islamic shrine.

Jet Airways, India’s premier airline and a carrier at the forefront of shaping the world’s airline industry, launched a new flight linking Toronto with Delhi, via Brussels, five times a week.

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Flights effective October 29.

Founder’s flight
path to success

Naresh Goyal, 58, the founder -chairman of Jet Airways, has over 37 years of experience in the civil aviation industry and has served on the board of governors of the International Air Transport Association (iata), from 2004-2006.

After graduating in Commerce in 1967, he joined the gsa for Lebanese International Airlines. He underwent extensive training in all facets of the travel business through his association with several foreign airlines and also travelled extensively all over the world.

With the experience, expertise and technical know-how thus acquired, in May 1974, Goyal founded Jetair (Private) Limited with the objective of providing sales and marketing represen-tation to foreign airlines in India. He was involved in developing studies of traffic patterns, route structures, operational economics and flight scheduling, and is considered an authority on aviation and travel.

In 1991, as part of the on-going diversification program, he took advantage of the opening up of the Indian economy and the enunciation of the Open Skies Policy by the government of India, and Jet Airways comm-enced commercial operations on May 5, 1993.

In 14 years, Jet Airways has emerged as India’s largest private domestic airline and has been acclaimed as the most preferred carrier offering the highest quality of comfort, courtesy, standards of ground and in-flight services and reliability of operations.

Goyal has won:

• The Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Services from Ernst & Young

• Distinguished Alumni Award - 2000 for meritorious and distin-guished performance as an entre-preneur

• The Most Respected Company in the travel and hospitality sectors.

Other awards include the Outstanding Asian-Indian award for leadership and contribution to the global community given by the Indian American Centre for Political Awareness; aerospace laurels for outstanding con-tribution in the field of comm-ercial air transport in April 2000 and February 2004; and the Pride in Excellence award from Boeing Company for maintaining the highest technical despatch relia-bility for the second year in succession in April 2004.

In July, 2005, Business Week selected Goyal as one of the five leaders from India in their Asia edition cover story, Stars of Asia – 25 Leaders at the Forefront of Change.

He received the first BML Munjal Award for Excellence in Learning & Development in the Private Sector category from India’s minister for Civil Avia-2006.

India’s prime minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, presented the first ndtv Profit Business Award 2006 to Jet Airways.

The award salutes the men and women who fuel India’s journey to the forefront of the world economy.