“The proposed mosque design looks more like a place for recreation rather than pilgrimage,” said Iqbal Ansari, ex-litigant for the Muslim side in the Ayodhya land dispute case. His father Hashim Ansari was the oldest litigant in the case who had filed the first petition in this matter in 1952.

“After 70 years of struggle at courts at every level – district, state and center – we finally got this land to build a mosque. A mosque is the abode of Allah. It is not a center of tourism and should be marked by simplicity,” said Ansari.

The Dhannipur mosque’s proposed design does not have the minarets or domes generally associated with Islamic architecture in India.1

Ansari said he wasn’t consulted about the plan by the Indo-Islamic Cultural Foundation.

Several other people criticized the layout the day IICF released the blueprint on Twitter.  Users even questioned the need to build a huge hospital in a village that has a Muslim population of not more than 200.

Arshad Abbad, professor, department of Islamic Studies, Jamia Millia Islamia, differs from the naysayers.2

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The All India Muslim Personal Board (AIMPLB), which had been fighting the Ayodhya land dispute case until the Supreme Court gave its final judgment in November 2019, had filed a review petition challenging the Supreme Court order.3

“Our review petition filed on Dec 12, 2019, was rejected without giving us an opportunity of hearing.”

IICF’s Athar Hussain is not too perturbed by the criticism of the proposed plan.

• 1. “Every religious structure has its own set of characteristic features, and mosques do too. For instance, mosques in India have minarets,” said Ansari. “The Dhannipur mosque isn’t representative of an Indian ideology but is inspired by foreign architecture. India’s Muslims want this mosque to be identified with Hindustan and take our country’s Islamic culture forward through it. Unfortunately, this seems unachievable through the proposed plan.”
• 2. “The Dhannipur mosque fulfills both the criteria laid out in the Quran (Islamic holy text),” he said. “A mosque cannot be built on disputed land and needs to be duly acquired by a legal mandate. Secondly, people seated in the prayer room should face the Kaaba while reading namaaz (prayers).” The Kaaba or Kabah is a building at the center of Islam’s most sacred site, the Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
• 3. “As per the Sharia (Islamic law), a mosque cannot be shifted, exchanged, bartered, sold, or gifted,” said Zafaryab Jilani, a Lucknow-based lawyer and member of Babri Masjid Action Committee (BAMC), AIMPLB. “In its order, the Supreme Court had given an alternative piece of land in exchange for the Babri Masjid site but had not directed that a mosque be built on it. The acquired land is unfit for the construction of a new mosque as per Sharia as it is bartered — the land was taken in lieu of some other mosque.”