A political story of Jama Masjid

The Masjid-e-Jane-Jahanuma or Jama Masjid was built by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan in the 17th century as the central mosque for the capital city of Shahjahanabad. Shah Jahan invited Hazrat Abdul Ghafur Shah to lead the regular prayers at Jama Masjid. Abdul Ghafur Shah was an established Islamic scholar from Bukhara, a central Asian city renowned for Islamic scholarship at that time. Imam Ghafur Shah was designated as the Imam-ul-Sultan (the Imam of the Emperor) or the Shahi Imam of the Jama Masjid.   

The Shahi Imam had two main functions. First, as the Imam of the mosque he had to perform certain religious activities such as leading regular daily prayers, weekly congregational prayers on Friday and the annual Eid prayers. Second, the Imam had to function as the royal priest. He was bestowed with the responsibility and authority of crowning the Mughal emperor. The Imam of Jama Masjid, thus, over the period of time became some kind of religious-political authority…. 

Despite having a religious-traditional authority, the Shahi Imam had not been involved in the management related issues of the mosque in Mughal India. The Emperor dedicated four villages as wakf for Jama Masjid. However, by the end of the 19th century these villages disappeared and the mosque lost its principal source of income. Yet, the royal grants were continued for the maintenance of Jama Masjid. In the last phase of the Mughal Empire, when it became virtually impossible for the Mughal Kings to provide financial support to the mosque, the local community took up this responsibility. 

In the late 19th century a Working Committee for looking after the management of the mosque was set up. Besides the monthly collection from the local shops and stalls, the donations given by the rich Muslims were the main source of income of the mosque at that time. The Imam of Jama Masjid used to be an ordinary member of the Working Committee. 
After the formation of the Sunni Majlis-e-Auqaf on the basis of the Auqaf Act of 1943, all the powers of the Working Committee of Jama Masjid were delegated to this newly centralized Wakf institution. This administrative system was changed again in 1962 when the Delhi Wakf Board (DWB) was established under the Wakf Act of 1954. Since then the management of the Jama Masjid became the responsibility of the DWB. All the financial matters including the payments of salaries to the Shahi Imam, the Naib Imam and other employees of the mosque were administered by the DWB. 

….Jama Masjid has never been declared a protected monument. Following the guidelines given in the Conservation Manual of 1923, the Jama Masjid was put in the special category. Without any formal agreement with concerned religious endowment, the ASI used to take care of the architectural and historic character of the buildings. However, the question of ASI’s involvement in the management of the mosque has always been a politically sensitive issue.  

….The eleventh Imam of the Jama Masjid, Syed Hamid Bukhari was the Shahi Imam of the mosque in 1970s. He was known for his personal integrity and was respected as a responsible ‘elder’ by the local Muslim community. On the other hand, his eldest son and the then Naib Imam (Deputy Imam) of the mosque, Syed Abdullah Bukhari, was not an educated man. No one knows about his formal education. He was not a Hafiz (memorizer), nor an Alim or Mufti (formal degrees in the Madrasa system). Yet, as the Naib Imam, he used to lead the regular prayers at Jama Masjid in the absence of his father. Unlike Syed Hamid, Abdullah Bukhari was a politically ambitious person. He was fully aware of the religious and historical significance of Jama Masjid, particularly the economic importance of the mosque for the local Muslim population, and very much interested in exploiting this ‘emotional attachment’ for his own political advancement. 

...He was aware of his limitations and advantages. He must have realised, as it seems, the historic connection between the institution of Shahi Imam and the Jama Masjid. Yet, he was a bit confused, as his first political endeavour clearly shows, about the choice of an applicable political strategy. As a result, he decided not to use his indisputable stature as the true heir of the royal Muslim past in a manner antagonistic to the government and adopted a relatively mild approach. 

Instead of waging a war against the Wakf Board, Abdullah Bukhari chose an alternative political move. He issued a statement supporting the family planning programme of the government. This statement was widely circulated as a religious decree (fatwa) and presented as the religious sanctioning for family planning among Muslims. He also used the Public Address System (PAS) of the Jama Masjid to encourage the Muslims for family planning.   

….This pro-Congress gesture turned out to be a political disaster for Abdullah Bukhari. This ‘fatwa’ further heightened the anti-government feelings, which were already increasing in the Jama Masjid area because of the forced urbanisation and family planning programme. Many Muslim families decided not to offer namaz inside this historic mosque to register their protest.  The fatwa was also criticised by the local political groups as well as the established Muslim organisations. 

This political debacle was a turning point for Abdullah Bukhari. He realised that his political support to Mrs Gandhi could not help him in mobilizing local Muslims. The pro-Congress politics, furthermore, did not give him a stature that he might have been aiming for. On the other hand, the Congress was also not interested in him any longer. The fatwa was unofficially withdrawn and the Congress establishment started ignoring him. These changing circumstances forced Abdullah Bukhari not only to revolutionise his style of politics but also to rethink creatively about more innovative use of Jama Masjid. In this context, the Socialist Party and the Jan Sangh--ideologically two opposite political groups- discovered Abdullah Bukhari, as a potential ally.    

The public image of Bukhari was further ruined by allegations made by the DWB. …the Board had asked Abdullah Bukhari to give accounts for the money received by him through the sale of tickets to foreign tourists.. However, Bukhari did not reply to these letters and ignored the reminders sent to him. 
(The article contains excerpts from Hilal Ahmed’s book, Muslim Political Discourse in Postcolonial India: Monuments, Memory, Contestation, Routledge, 2014)     

The author is an assistant professor  at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS)