In Methala, Kodungallur, the Indian district of Kerala, there is a small modest mosque with a sky blue façade. It could easily be mistaken for a village school with the red roof and small square windows, if it did not have any minarets and a small bulbous dome. Then what is so remarkable about this mosque? There are hundreds and thousands of Muslim temples around the globe! This mosque is 1400 years, which makes it one of the first created mosques in the world.
It is believed that the mosque was built in 629 AD. Although it has already undergone more than one repair and reconstruction (according to the local manager), a part of it remains intact and it is still preserved. Do you find it amazing that in the early years of Islam and so far from Mecca and Medina there appeared a mosque, which still exists today?
The mosque is mostly known in the world as the Cheraman Juma Mosque (it received its name in honor of “Cheraman Perumal”, the title used by the rulers of the Chera dynasty). The genuine name of the king, after whom the Muslim temple was named, is still unknown. Dr. Hasseena, Associate Professor at the Department of Economics, in his work “Historical Aspects of the Legend of Cheraman Perumal of Kodungallur in Kerala” gives a very interesting and popular for this epoch story, which is more similar to a fairy tale:
Once a king — a Cheraman Perumal — was walking on the balcony of his palace when he spotted the moon splitting into two and joining back again. Bewildered, he consulted a few astrologers, who confirmed that such an event had indeed occurred and was not a mystical experience. Few months later, he got a few Arab visitors on their way to Ceylon and from them, the king learned that Prophet Muhammad was behind this miracle and he was the founder of a new religion. The king did something drastic. He abdicated the throne, divvied up the kingdom and set sail to Mecca to meet this man. He met the Prophet and converted to Islam and lived in Arabia for a while. Then to spread the religion in his homeland, the converted Perumal returned to Kerala, but he died somewhere along the way.
The king, who knew he would soon die, wrote letters to his relatives in Kerala to whom he had partitioned his kingdom before leaving for Mecca. He gave fortune to Malik ibn Dinar, a Tabi’i (one who knew or came into contact with the Companions of the Prophet Muhammad), who, along with some companions, made his way to India, becoming the first Muslim to ever step foot in the Subcontinent. In the letters, the king asked his relatives “to receive the bearers of the letter and to treat them well”, along with his wishes that mosques be built in Kerala to help spread the new religion. The letter was honored, and Malik ibn Dinar and his companions went on to build a number of mosques, including the Cheraman Juma Masjid.
According to Dr. Haseena, the first written account of a Kerala king meeting Prophet Muhammad was first recorded in 1510 by the Portuguese writer Duarte Barbosa. In subsequent centuries, different versions appear in other Portuguese and Dutch works, as well as and in the court chronicles of Calicut and Cochin. It is needless to say that, like much of Kerala’s ancient history, the absence of preserved historical documents makes it difficult to verify the various traditions and legends associated with the region. Many of these tales are so embedded in consciousness however, that the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi even gifted Saudi Arabia’s king Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud a gold-plated replica of the mosque during his visit in 2016.
According to the management of the mosque itself, many of the visitors of the Muslim temple are non-Muslims, which means it is open to people of all faiths. Inside, there is an ancient oil lamp, which, many speculate, has been preserved for over 1000 years. Many come to the mosque with oil for the lamp as an offering.
Of course, although the probability that we will learn the only true history of the origin of this mosque is quite small, it does not cancel the fact that this small religious structure is a clear example of close and strong intercultural relations, the history of which spans over 1000 years.
Ilmira Gafiyatullina