Mosques

"A far more important discovery was made in 1860, in digging the foundation of the Magistrate and Collector's new court-house. The site selected for this building was an extensive mound overhanging the Agra road at the entrance to the civil station. It had always been regarded as merely the remains of a series of brick-kilns, and had been further protected against exploration by the fact that it was crowned by a small mosque. This was, for military reasons, blown down during the mutiny ; and afterwards, on clearing away the rubbish and excavating for the new foundations, it was found to have been erected, in accordance with the common usage of the Muhammadan conquerors, upon the ruins of a destroyed temple. A number of Buddhist statues, pillars, and basso-relievos, were disinterred ; and the inscriptions, as partially deciphered, would seem to indicate that the mound was occupied by several different monasteries..."

"The ritual needs and structural properties of the Hindus and the Muslims are so diametrically opposite as to deter any compromise and, therefore, the early Muslim conquerors of Bengal said their prayer in mosques built out of the fragments of Hindu materials in the same way as their predecessors did at Delhi, Ajmer, Patan, Janupur, Dhar and Mandu, and elsewhere. In the event [absence?] of any complete picture of pre-Muslim Hindu art as practised in Gaud and Hazrat Pandua, it is an exaggeration to hold the view after Saraswati that ‘indeed, every structure of this royal city (Hazrat Pandua) discloses Hindu materials in its composition, thus, disclosing that no earlier monument was spared.”"

"Qawwat al-Islam Mosque. According to my findings the first mosque of Delhi is Qubbat all-Islam or Quwwat al-Islam which, it is said, Qutbud-Din Aibak constructed in H. 587 after demolishing the temple built by Prithvi Raj and leaving certain parts of the temple (outside the mosque proper); and when he returned from Ghazni in H. 592, he started building, under orders from Shihabud-Din Ghori, a huge mosque of inimitable red stones, and certain parts of the temple were included in the mosque. Mosques of Alamgir (Aurangzeb). It is said that the mosque of Benares was built by Alamgir on the site of the Bisheshwar Temple. That temple was very tall and (held as) holy among the Hindus. On this very site and with those very stones he constructed a lofty mosque, and its ancient stones were rearranged after being embedded in the walls of the mosque. It is one of the renowed mosques of Hindustan. The second mosque at Benares (is the one) which was built by Alamgir on the bank of the Ganga with chiselled stones. This also is a renowned mosque of Hindustan. It has 28 towers, each of which is 238 feet tall. This is on the bank of the Ganga and its foundations extend to the depth of the waters. Alamgir built a mosque at Mathura. It is said that this mosque was built on the site of the Gobind Dev Temple which was very strong and beautiful as well as exquisite…”"

"From old records and the tradition it is gathered... Wherever they found magnificent temples of the Hindus ever since the establishment of Sayyid Salar Mas’ud Ghazi’s rule, the Muslim rulers in India built mosques, monasteries, and inns, appointed mu’azzins, teachers, and store-stewards, spread Islam vigorously, and vanquished the Kafirs.... And this to such an extent that all over Hindustan no trace of infidelity was left besides Islam and no practice of idol-worship survived besides worship of God. And the few Hindus who remained safe from the hands of the Muslims became the slaves of Islam, began to pay kharaj, became subdued... In short, even as the Muslim rulers cleared up Mathura, Banares etc from the dust and dross of infidelity ... Likewise, they cleared up Faizabad and Avadh, too, from the filth of reprobation (infidelity), because it was a great centre of worship and capital of Rama’s father. Here they broke the temples and left no stone-hearted idol intact. Where there stood the great temple (of Ramjanmasthan), there they built a big mosque, and, where there was a small mandap (pavilion), there they erected a camp mosque (masjid-i mukhtasar-i qanati). The Janmasthan temple is the principal place of Rama’s incarnation, adjacent to which is the Sita ki Rasoi. Hence, what a lofty mosque was built there by king Babar in 923 A. H. (1528 A.D.), under the patronage of Musa Ashiqan! The mosque is still known far and wide as the Sita ki Rasoi mosque. And that temple is extant by its side."

"I am here led to relate that at the city of Banaras a temple had been erected by Rajah Maun Sing, which cost him the sum of nearly thirty-six laks of five methkaly ashrefies. ...I made it my plea for throwing down the temple which was the scene of this imposture; and on the spot, with the very same materials, I erected the great mosque, because the very name of Islam was proscribed at Banaras, and with God’s blessing it is my design, if I live, to fill it full with true believers."

"Because of the shortage of stone, people scurried hither and thither throughout the kingdom in search of it. Some struck the base of mountains, so much were they enamoured of their search for stone that they tore at the mountain like lovers. Some were keener than steel in up- rooting the foundations of unbelief. Having sharpened their steels they applied them in holy war to the idol temples of the rais and with blows of iron they devoted their strength with as much vigour as possible to the breaking of the stones. Wherever an idol temple had engaged in an act of devotion the strong tongue of the spade in well founded argument removed the foundations of infidelity from the heart so that, at once, that idol temple in gratitude performed the Muslim rite of bowing in prayer."

"During this month of Ramzan abounding in miracles, the Emperor as the promoter of justice and overthrower of mischief, as a knower of truth and destroyer of oppression, as the zephyr of the garden of victory and the reviver of the faith of the Prophet, issued orders for the demolition of the temple situated in Mathurã, famous as the Dehra of Kesho Rãi. In a short time by the great exertions of his officers the destruction of this strong foundation of infidelity was accomplished, and on its site a lofty mosque was built at the expenditure of a large sum'...'Praised be the august God of the faith of Islãm, that in the auspicious reign of this destroyer of infidelity and turbulence, such a wonderful and seemingly impossible work was successfully accomplished. On seeing this instance of the strength of the Emperor's faith and the grandeur of his devotion to God, the proud Rajas were stifled and in amazement they stood like images facing the wall. The idols, large and small, set with costly jewels which had been set up in the temple were brought to Agra, and buried under the steps of the mosque of the Begam Sãhib, in order to be continually trodden upon. The name of Mathurã was changed to Islãmãbãd.'"

"On the capture of Golkonda, the Emperor appointed Abdur Rahim Khan as Censor of the city of Haiderabad with orders to put down infidel practices and (heretical) innovations and destroy the temples and build mosques on their sites."

"There's more than one mosque in the world that used to be a church and before that was a temple. Because it's a lot easier to just change the sign on the top and say "under new management" than it is to change the whole building. I worked a lot of comedy clubs in the eighties that still had the disco ball on the ceiling. And in the nineties they became strip clubs. And now they're a Starbucks."

"When the imperial army was encamping at Mathura, a holy city of the Hindus, the state of affairs with regard to temples of Mathura was brought to the notice of His Majesty. Thus, he ordered the faujdar of the city, Abdul Nabi Khan, to raze to the ground every temple and to construct big mosques (over their demolished sites).'"

"In the Islamic world many places of worship belonging to the earlier religion have been converted to mosques."

"The fact that temples were broken and mosques constructed in their place is well known. Nor is the fact that the materials of the temples-the stones and idols--were used in constructing the mosque, news. It was thought that this was the way to announce hegemony. It was thought that this was the way to strike at the heart of the conquered-for in those days the temple was not just a place of worship; it was the hub of the community’s life, of its learning, of its social life."

"Aurangzeb's purpose in building those three mosques was the same intentionally offensive political purpose that moved the Russians to build their Orthodox cathedral in the city-centre at Warsaw. Those mosques were intended to signify that an Islamic government was reigning supreme, even over Hinduism's holiest of holy places. I must say that Aurangzeb had a veritable genius for picking out provocative sites. Aurangzeb and Philip II of Spain are a pair. They are incarnations of the gloomily fanatical vein in the Christian - Muslim - Jewish family of religions. Aurangzeb - poor wretched misguided bad man - spent a lifetime of hard labour in raising massive monuments to his own discredit. Perhaps the Poles were really kinder in destroying the Russians' self-discrediting monument in Warsaw than you have been in sparing Aurangzeb's mosques."

"Visnu - my dwelling place Puskara has been overcome with terror of the matangas [Turks]. The place where I myself performed the final ablutions after the great sacrifice of world creation, the mleccha army now uses to refresh themselves after their violent destruction of temples and brahman settlements."

"What is often not easy to make out is to what extent temples were demolished and then replaced with mosques, or whether they were sometimes just converted into mosques. Or to what extent already ruined temples were disassembled and used for the construction of new buildings. Obviously, the Muslims had no qualms about re-using materials from destroyed temples, although many Muslims refer to the Qur'an as the source for a prohibition against this... Most of the mosques which were built from the materials of, and on the sites of, demolished Hindu temples, are known to the Archaeological Survey of India, and their histories are related in local traditions. What replaced the images which were effaced, destroyed or removed was God's Word, in calligraphic Arabic-in the way that the Decalogue came to rule in the churches of the West in the later sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Inscriptions in Arabic, quoting the Qur'an, state the date and founder of the mosque as well. The seventh to eighteenth centuries have also generated an enormous mass of literary evidence of Islamic iconoclasm in the area from Transoxania and Mghanistan to Tamil Nadu and Assam, the whole of which is littered with ruins of temples and monasteries. These texts speak of the destruction of 'places of worship' (ma'iibid, biya'), 'idol-houses' (buyut al-asniim, butkhiinahii), 'fire-temples' (kunishthii, iitashkhiinahii), and their budda stone idols, 'deaf and dumb idols', and so on.... In many of the early Islamic monuments in India, plunder from Hindu or Jain temples appears to have been a common source of building material."

"This fort was conquered and this Jãmi‘ Masjid built in the months of the year 587 by the Amîr, the great, the glorious commander of the Army, Qutb-ud-daula wad-dîn, the Amîr-ul-umarã Aibeg, the slave of the Sultãn, may God strengthen his helpers! The materials (?) of 27 idol temples, on each of which 2,000,000 Deliwãl had been spent were used in the (construction of) this mosque. God the Great and Glorious may have mercy on that slave, every one who is in favour of the good (?) builder prays for this faith."

"The Blessed and Exalted Allãh says, ‘And verily, mosques are for Allãh only; hence invoke not anyone else with Allãh.’ This edifice was (originally) built by the infidels. After the advent (lit. time) of Islãm, it was converted into (lit. became) a mosque. Sermon was (delivered here) for sixty-seven years. Due to the sedition of the infidels, it was again destroyed. When during the reign of the Sultãn of the time, Ahmad, the affairs of each Iqtã attained magnificence, Babãdur, the Sarkhail, once again carried out repairs. Through the generosity of Divine munificence, it became like new."

"He (Allãh) is Omniscient. Praise be to Allãh that by the decree of the Nourisher, a mosque has been converted out of a temple as a sign of religion, in the reign of the world-conquering emperor, the king who is asylum of the Faith and possessor of the crown, whose kingdom is young (i.e. flourishing), viz. Fîrûz Shãh Bahmanî, who is the cause of exuberant spring in the garden of religion, Abu’l-Fath the king who conquered (lit. on horseback). After the victory of the emperor, the chief of chiefs, Safdar (lit. the valiant commander) of the age, received (the charge of) the fort. The builder of this noble place of prayer is Muhammad ZaHîr Aqchî, the pivot of the Faith. He constructed in the year eight hundred and nine from the Migration of the Chosen (prophet Muhammad) this Ka‘ba like memento."

"This centre became Muhammadan first by him (and) all the banners of religion were spread… This lion-man came from the centre of religion to this old temple with a large force. He broke the images of the false deities, and turned the idol temple into a mosque. When Rãi Bhoj saw this, through wisdom he embraced Islãm with the family of his brave warriors. This quarter became illuminated by the light of the Muhammadan law, and the customs of the infidels became obsolete and abolished. Now this tomb since those days has become the famous pilgrimage-place of the world. Graves from their oldness became levelled (to the ground), (and) there remained no mound on any grave. There was [no place] also for the retirement, wherein the distressed dervish could take rest… The Khaljî king MaHmûd Shãh who is such that by his justice the world has become adorned like paradise; he built afresh this old structure, and this house with its enclosure again became new… From the hijra it was 859 (AD 1455) that its (the building’s) date was written anew…”"

"I seek refuge in Allãh from (the mischief of) the accursed Satan (and begin) in the name of Allãh, the Beneficent, the Merciful. Praise be to Allãh! Allãh the Blessed and Exalted says, ‘And verily the mosques are for Allãh only; hence, invoke not anyone else with Allãh.’27 (The prophet), on him be peace, says ‘He who builds a mosque in the world, the Exalted Allãh builds for him a palace in Paradise.’ In the auspicious time of the government and peaceful time of Mahmûd Shãh, son of Muhammad Shãh, the sultãn, the Jãmi‘, mosque was constructed on the hill of the fort of Mãlûn (or Mãlwan) by Khãn-i-A‘zam Ulugh Khãn, may Allãh prolong his life for justice, generosity and benevolence, at the request of the thãnadãr Kabîr, (son of Diyã), the building was constructed by a servant of Ulugh Khãn (who is) magnanimous, just, generous, brave (and who) suppressed the wretched infidels. He eradicated the idol-houses and mine of infidelity, along with the idols in the enemy’s country with the blow of the sword, and made ready this abode with different kinds of stone, marble and marim (?). He made its walls and doors out of the stone of the idols; the back of every stone became the place for prostration of the believers… the date was Thursday, fifth of the month of Rajab of the year eight hundred and sixty at the time (5th April, AD 1462)."

"Allãh and His grace. When divine favour was bestowed on Khalîl Shãh, he constructed the Jãmi‘ Masjid for the decoration of Islãm; he ruined the idol-house and temple of the polytheists, (and) completed the Masjid and pulpit in its place. Without doubt, his building was accepted by Allãh. What a pleasing edifice became the calculation of its year."

"Dilãwar Khãn, the chief among the king’s viceroys, caused this mosque to be built which is like a place of shelter for the favourites. Infidelity has been subdued, and Islãm has triumphed because of him. The idols have bowed (to him) and the temples have been laid waste on account of him. The temples have been razed to the ground along with their foundations, and mosques and worship houses are flowing with riches."

"Thanks that by the guidance of the Everlasting and Living (Allãh), this house of infidelity became the niche of prayer (i.e. mosque). As a reward for that, the generous Lord, constructed an abode for its builder in paradise: The Pen of Reason wrote (the words): the mosque of Nawwãb Muhsin Khãn for the date of its construction."

"Oh Allãh! Oh Muhammad! O ‘Alî! Mir Muhammad Zamãn made up his mind, he opened the door of prosperity on himself with his own hand. He demolished thirty-three idol-temples (and) by divine grace, laid the foundation of a building in this abode of perdition. That the mosques are Allãh’s, therefore call not upon any one with Allãh (Qur’ãn LXXII, 18). He opened the arms of magnanimity with goodness and scattered gold, (and) laid the foundation of a mosque like the palace of paradise. I went in contemplation and sought its date from Wisdom. Wisdom was astonished and said, he built this blessed building."

"Destroyed the house of idols… and built a mosque, demolished… infidels… built. (Persian inscription) [The mosque is] “to last as long as the Moon and Sun,” and “those that cause obstruction (to it) will incur the sin of killing cow at Kãši [Varanasi].” (Telugu inscription)."

"Ghãzî ‘Alî, lord of the age, victor in war… with the help and support of the victorious king, pivot (Kutb) of the world, king (Shãh) of the throne of the Dakhan, from one end to the other, he (Ghãzî ‘Alî) burnt away the sweepings of idolatry… with the fire of his sword (he) burnt in one moment the idol of the idol-worshippers; he killed all, that breaker-through (annihilator) of the army; when he captured the fort of Udayagiri, the world became full of Jessamine; (he) began to construct the mosque and the date was, ‘Founder of the mosque - (Ghãzî) ‘Alî the iconoclast’. (1) During the days of Abdulla Kutb Shãh, the pride of kings, Husain Khãn secured the blessings of God in that he constructed a new mosque and embellished it. May God accept it for the purpose of prayers. A thousand and sixty and ten and one elapsed from Hijra (AD 1660-61). He destroyed a temple and constructed the House of God. (2)"

"In obedience to the commandment of the Almighty God, the Lord of both the worlds; and in love of… the exalted Prophet: During the reign of Shãhjahãn, the king of the seven climes, the viceregent of God (lit. Truth), the master of the necks of people… the benevolent and generous Prince Aurangzeb, whose existence is a blessing of the Merciful God on people: He built a house for worship with (all) the qualities of heaven: after the site has been previously occupied by the temple of infidels…"

"In the reign of Shãh ‘Ãlamgîr Muhîu’ddin Walmillah, the king of the world, Aurangzeb, who is adorned with justice, the lustre of Islãm shone forth to the glory of God; for ‘Abd-un-Nabi Khãn built this beautiful mosque. This second ‘Holy Temple’ caused the idols to bow down in worship. You will see the true meaning of the text, “Truth came and error vanished.’ Whilst I search for a tãrikh, a voice came from blissful Truth ordering me to say ‘Abd-un-Nabi Khãn is the builder of this beautiful mosque.’ May this Jãma Masjid of majestic structure shine forth for ever like the hearts of the pious! Its roof is high like aspirations of love; its court-yard is wide like the arena of thought."

"In the reign of the great Prince Ãlamgîr, Like the full shining moon, The enlightener of the world, Praise be to God that this happy place, Was by Motamid Khãn completed as an alms. It was the idol temple of the vile Gwãlî, He made it a mosque, like a mansion of paradise. The Khãn of enlightened heart, Nay light itself from head to foot, Displayed the divine light, like that of mid-day, He closed the idol temple: Exclamations rose from earth to heaven, When the light put far away the abode of darkness, Hatif said “light be blessed."

"In the name of Allãh, the Beneficent, the Merciful. There is no god except Allãh. Muhammad is His Prophet, verily. In the just reign of ‘Ãlamgîr, the king who is the asylum of Faith (and) whose universal generosity makes the sea and mine shame-stricken, one of his devoted servants, Muhammad Ashraf of god faith, saw a place where there was a temple. Like Khalîl (Prophet Abraham), he broke the temple at the command of God, and arranged for the construction of a very steadfast mosque. Year (AH) one thousand and seventy-eight. (AH 1078 = AD 1667)."

"He who builds a mosque in the way of Allah, God will build a house for him in the paradise."

"A simple unpartitioned room,— Surmounted by an ample dome, Or, in some lands that favoured lie, With centre open to the sky, But roofed with archéd cloisters round, That mark the consecrated bound, And shade the niche to Mekkeh turned, By which two massive lights are burned; With pulpit whence the sacred word Expounded on great days is heard; With fountain fresh, where, ere they pray, Men wash the soil of earth away; With shining minaret, thin and high, From whose fine-trellised balcony Announcement of the hours of prayer Is uttered to the silent air; Such is the Mosque,—the holy place, Where faithful men of every race, Meet at their ease, and face to face."

"The (Taipei) city (government) should use its budget to build a bigger mosque, preferably close to an MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) station."

"The idolaters have no right to maintain the mosques of Allah, while bearing witness to disbelief against themselves. These it is whose works are vain; and in the Hell will they abide. Only he can maintain the mosques of Allah who believes in Allah and the Last Day, and keeps up prayer and pays the poor-rate and fears none but Allah. So these it is who may be of the guided ones. Do you hold the giving of drink to the pilgrims and the maintenance of the Sacred Mosque equal to (the service of) one who believes in Allah and the Last Day and strives hard in Allah's way? They are not equal in the sight of Allah. And Allah guides not the iniquitous people. Those who believed and fled (their homes), and strove hard in Allah's way with their wealth and their lives, are much higher in rank with Allah. And it is these that shall triumph."

""The whole earth has been made a mosque and pure for me." - (Bukhari, www.alislam.org)"