Temple & Mosque

Md. Aminul Islam and Ratan Chakraborty can't recall any discord between Muslims and Hindus in Rajapur.

“Dhan, nodi, khal – e tine Barisal.”

In the calm alleyway mix beyond the centre of Rajapur in Jhalokati; where the shady homestead yard may be ditch-and-mound ribbed – the mounds for trees in rows to gather contemplating while in each ditch water reclines for longer days; in that wooded zone yet to shed its rural heritage in its newer semi-suburban age; on an afternoon when rickshaws politely and without bell squeeze to pass on that forgotten arch of a bridge over whichever canal – the paddy might be some way off but it’s easy to sit back and think, easy to recall the old rhyme of that Division. “Paddy, river, canal: these three are Barisal.”

Yet in that area beside the not-so-busy bitumen road, beyond the yawn of the motorcycle repair shop to the right, beyond the shack of a tea shop too, where locals seem to loiter even when the kettle is off-the-boil and the tea is seemingly on its way from Sylhet, prior to the uninteresting junction where the road to the back of the college leads off between the trees, there’s something that’s a little more Jhalokati perhaps and less broader Barisal – and it starts with the mosque.

At the Baitul Aman Jamia mosque in Rajapur.

To say there’s any remarkable feature to the Baitul Aman Jamia mosque building would be a lie. It’s clean and functional, tiled in white with Arabic inscriptions across the doorway. The adhan call is in every sense usual. It’s the image of a mosque of the ordinary type to be found across the country.

Diagonally opposite, over the road and entered through a colourfully signposted green gate off a side lane, the Sri Sri Hari temple likewise cannot claim extraordinariness in either grandeur or historical merit. It’s peaceful and has a banyan tree in the midst of a largish yard that no doubt devotees take enjoyment from – but even that hardly makes it outstanding.

It’s a fifty-fifty world in Rajapur – Muslim and Hindu. Temple and mosque share fellowship as possibly their greatest reward; and that’s a phenomenon as natural to Rajapur as the shady blessing of the canopy.

“We go and sit in the temple sometimes,” says a Muslim man at the tea shop, “Nobody disturbs us there.”

Now let’s speak of two men – locally important and pious. It didn’t start with them but there they are: madrassa assistant professor Md. Aminul Islam has been the mosque’s Imam for the past three years while primary school teacher Ratan Chakraborty has filled the temple’s post of Prohith for the last five.

“Islam always wants freedom for everybody,” says our Imam, “It gives the chance to everybody to enjoy their religion. Islam does not like any violence, clashes or anarchy. Islam wants peace.”

A Durga motif at the Sri Sri Hari Temple.

“In the Gita it states that we should honour all religions,” says our Prohith, “All religions are one.”

“Communalism is a great crime for a man. A Muslim cannot do it. Those who have committed such things are not real Muslims,” are our Imam’s words.

“Communalism decreases relations between the communities. People should not be doing it,” is our Prohith’s speech.

There’s a natural beauty to Rajapur: of rain tree, chambol, mahogany, jackfruit, banyan, Hinduism and Islam. Drastic change is nowhere in the forecast.

“We have our weekly service on Tuesdays,” says our Prohith, “We celebrate many pujas – Kali, Durga, Lokenath, Shiv... Muslims are always invited to join our pujas and funeral processions – and they do. There’s never been a quarrel.”

“When they perform namaz prayer the temple stops to show honour,” he continues, “Hindus and Muslims are like brothers here.”

“We don’t disturb Hindu functions,” says our Imam, “Some Muslim youths help with their pujas. I never saw any problems between Muslims and Hindus in Rajapur.”

News? What news? There’s no news here...

One of the protimas at the temple.

At the time of Eid ul Adha there are many invitations – Hindu families will be busy visiting Muslim homes to sample shemai, noodles and fruit. At the time of Durga Puja, Muslims too dig into their pockets to help fund the festivities. The temple sends jackfruit to the mosque each year. Each Thursday after namaz and recitation of hadiths and Quranic verses at the nearby meeting hall there’s the kichuri rice dish to be savoured – and shared – to comers of either faith.

And so on and so forth it goes... the chambol stretches out another branch, new roots of the banyan find their earth, the mahongany trunk ever so slowly thickens – it’s all show for the first one hundred years. The tea meanwhile is still on its way from Sylhet – an entirely natural phenomenon – and the one community of two faiths continues to share and to respect each other beneath Rajapur’s canopy.

At the time of the Babri Mosque’s demolition in India in 1992, when also in Bangladesh communal relations reached a particularly low point, Rajapur Muslims came out onto the road to assist the police in defending the temple and Hindu homes. Some troublemakers came from further afield but sure as the trees closed in on the open sky as they approached Rajapur, they found no scope for harassment or havoc.

For about a week the temple was continuously protected. And a beautiful nothing happened.

“All Hindus and Muslims are citizens in Bangladesh,” says our Imam, “People here are educated and religious. They do not make anarchy or harm others.”

“Hindus don’t leave this area for India,” says our Prohith – and five years ago he recalls, “My kitchen accidentally caught fire. My Muslim neighbours saw it and quickly put the fire out.” Now that’s a beautiful something to consider!

“Muslims have to apologise and compensate Hindus for losing their houses,” says our Imam about the recent troubles elsewhere, “Either the Muslim community or the government should compensate them. They should try to develop their brotherhood with Hindus.”

But wait... finally there is something remarkable – something has happened in the one-canopy one-community backblocks of Rajapur... at last there’s news, quite literally, brewing: the kettle is boiled and from somewhere far in hilly Sylhet the tea seems to have arrived...

And that is, for Rajapur surely, a worthy leading story.

Our Imam and our Prohith at the temple gate.

This article is published in Star Magazine, here: Temple & Mosque

An Islamic Legacy of Harmony

Madrassa students outside the Nesarabadi Islamic Complex in Jhalokati.

The small eatery, Sumon Chotpoti, has no space for a kitchen. The establishment on Kalibari Road in Jhalokati occupies a ground floor room barely big enough for its few tables and chairs. That leaves proprietor Shonkor Chandra, 67, standing on the roadside of an afternoon, surrounded by his ingredients.

Chandra, a Hindu, makes up for the lack of space by being organised. Various chotpoti elements are neatly arranged in plastic bowls and baskets of purple, red and blue – chillies, boiled egg, onions. He knows the value of combination. He’s expert in entertaining his fellow townsfolk.

Unlike chotpoti, society is made of people and flavoured by ideas rather than tamarind and spices. While Chandra might not find room for a kitchen he is lucky. In Jhalokati’s society there is no shortage of space. Contemporary Jhalokati District is one of the most communally harmonious in the country – and local people deservedly take pride from that.

Shonkor Chandra, of Sumon Chotpoti on Kalibari Road, Jhalokati

“We just took tea together,” says Muslim Anisur Rahman, proprietor of Siam Motors, referring to a Hindu friend. “We are neighbours. We live in one place. We are often guests at Hindu weddings. There’s no disturbance in Jhalokati.”

“There are no problems here,” agrees Hindu Nirmal Mandal, 50, who’s been running the Sun Studio photography store for 25 years.

“We are not Hindus and Muslims,” says Chandra, “but people. You do your religion and I do mine. What does it matter? Jhalokati is a bit good in this way.”

While a connoisseur might detect the various elements in Chandra’s chotpoti, the factors which produce an enlightened Jhalokati are not so obvious. Yet on the wall of Sumon Chotpoti are a number of small stickers that hold a clue to at least part of the reason.

On them is written, “Oh Muslim boys, in which hadith have you found that your prestige will decline if you work?” It is to be assumed that for Chandra the mantra for constructive activity applies in equal measure to those of other faiths – yet more telling is that those are the words of the late Islamic theologian Maulana Md. Azizur Rahman Nesarabadi.

Regarded as a saint and commonly referred to as Quaid Saheb Hujur, his shrine is at the expansive Nesarabadi Islamic Complex by the Bashanda River not far from town. His son Md Khalilur Rahman Nesarabadi is the current Principal of the large madrassa there and responsible for the more than forty organisations under the Nesarabadi umbrella.

The Nesarabadi Islamic Complex in Jhalokati.

“He was the mirror of Islam,” says his son, “He believed Islam was not only for Muslims but for everybody.” Indeed, Quaid Saheb Hujur’s contribution to Jhalokati is well-regarded by all religious communities. Both Mandal and Chandra have visited his shrine – Chandra is a regular.

Born in 1911, by all accounts Quaid Saheb Hujur lived a simple life. According to his son, he believed it sinful to save money and never had a bank account or his own home. Khalilur remembers on one occasion when his family was in a particularly bad financial state, his father received cheques for substantial amounts from the Islamic Foundation of Bangladesh as proceeds from books he had written. The son took the cheques to his father hoping it could alleviate the family’s difficulties.

“My life is for Allah,” Quaid Saheb Hujur told him, “My writing is not for earning money. This money is for the welfare of the people.”

Quaid Saheb Hujur believed in an Islam of leading by example and constructive engagement. In 1960 he founded an institution to provide mediation for villagers when the nearest court was in Barisal. He pursued an interest in allopathic treatment, encouraging locals to understand the properties of plants and cultivate those with health benefits. Even today at the madrassa complex the tea served is sourced from joshanda, the mehendi plant, which is thought to be healthy.

Returning from class at the madrassa.

True Muslims serve humanity..

Madrassa students also need technical education.

He founded numerous educational institutions and was instrumental in introducing technical education alongside religious instruction at madrassas. After all, practical skills could only enhance religious knowledge in providing the student with a better opportunity to engage with society on its own terms. He also believed in the rights of women to be educated, and the Nesarabadi complex includes a women’s madrassa.

“We Muslims have forgotten that serving fellow humans is one of the cardinal principles of our religion,” Quaid Sahed Hujur is reported to have said, “In order to become true Muslims we must serve humanity.”

The madrassa grounds

Believing it to be Islam’s work, Quaid Saheb Hujur organised an anti-corruption committee and participated in many anti-corruption processions over the years. According to his son, he was once detained for his efforts. At a rally he had called out dishonest officials by name, which had forced them through shame to return ill-gotten sums.

A great admirer of Rabindranath Tagore and a reader of Swami Vivekananda, Quaid Saheb Hujur was not averse to visiting Hindu religious ceremonies. After all, how could one hope to be of assistance to broader humanity if one does not engage with it? It is documented that he once went to listen to kirtan chanting in the bhakti tradition, performed by a group of kirtankars. After that experience Quaid Saheb Hujur said, “All religions say the same things.”

Visiting a kirtan was not a challenge to his Islamic faith but rather an expression of it.

Md Khalilur Rahman Nesarabadi, son of the late Qayed Saheb Hujur.

During the 1971 Liberation War it is recorded that some Hindus approached Quaid Saheb Hujur seeking to convert to Islam. Their decision was driven by fear, thinking they might be saved from the Pakistani Army. He discouraged them, saying, “The Pakistani Army is killing Muslims as well. Life and death are in God’s hands.” For Quaid Saheb Hujur, conversion motivated by fear was not a proper endeavour.

He believed that for the betterment of Bangladesh good people of all religions should stand united against dictatorship and corruption, and rise above religious difference for peace and unity. That is the legacy he left for Jhalokati.

Unsurprisingly for a saint, there are miracles ascribed to his life, which are naturally difficult to verify. Similarly it reads as somewhat out of character that he took a stand against atheists – though it might do to remember that until the most recent years the term was not politicized in Bangladesh in the way it is today, and to him, it might’ve been more of a synonym for immorality and lack of principle.

The madrassa grounds.

In any case, one does not need to be a Muslim or agree with all aspects of his beliefs to find within his teachings compassion and understanding. The Islam that Quaid Saheb Hujur taught is a faith of the ‘middle path’ with no place for either slackness or extremism.

In Jhalokati, the legacy of Quaid Saheb Hujur continues to be both significant and significantly positive. While a society is made of people, ideas create the flavour. And leadership matters.

Asked what his father would have done if he had lived to see these troubling recent days of Hindu homes being burnt and temples desecrated in several other districts of the country, his son says, “He would have gone to those districts straight away and tried to convince the Muslim communities that it is wrong. Islam does not believe in destruction but in good behaviour and harmony.”

For Shonkor Chandra it might be even simpler. He knows the value of combination. He knows that anyone favouring communalism could never enjoy the diversity of chotpoti. They’d be left, perhaps, to chew on onions. And he could certainly contemplate such things of an afternoon by the roadside, before the customers arrive, in a peaceful district like Jhalokati, in a society that’s not lacking in space.

Quaid Saheb Hujur's shrine is simple and decorated with plants.

This article published in Star Magazine, here: An Islamic Legacy of Harmony

*information sourced from interview and various Nesarabadi Islamic Complex publications.