People from various faiths, and genders, including atheists, attended the ‘Masjid Darshan’ programme held at Masjid-e-Bilal in Bannerghatta Road on Sunday.
The tour, aimed at promoting brotherhood, humanity, culture and religious harmony was organised by the management of Masjid-e-Bilal, Jamat-e-Islami Hind (Jayanagar and BTM Layout units) Masjid Federation, Students Islamic Organization (Bengaluru), and Solidarity Youth Movement.
Masjid-e-Bilal Secretary Nazir Basha told The Cognate, “We conducted this program to create brotherhood among all people. People of all faiths, including males and females, came. During the event, we explained our proceedings in the Masjid and showed them how we offer namaz, perform wudu and give adhan.”
The Masjid committee along with other groups are planning to do more such events in the neighbouring mosques. “We are doing this to show to members of other religions how a mosque works and what a peaceful environment and people we have here. Other faiths have a lot of confusion about our doings in the Masjid. So we wanted to transparently show the procedure of what we are doing in here,” Maulana Basha said.
About 150 Muslim women and over 300 men and women from other faiths, including IAS officers, women from other faiths, police officers, journalists, and activists attended the event.
State general secretary of the Welfare Party of India (WPI), Habibulla Khan, who was one of the organizers of the event said, “Our program has been very successful. Everyone should support this kind of initiative. This is a kind of remedy for the disease of hatred that the RSS is spreading in the country. They want to build a wall between the Hindus and Muslims, saying they are different. We are trying to break that wall and build a bridge between all the communities.”
“It is Allah’s Masjid, God’s Mosque. The servants of God have the right to go there,” said Khan.
Volunteers guided the visitors and took them on a tour of the mosque, explaining to them about Islam. After offering the Asr and Maghrib prayers, the organisers explained to them the meanings of prayers.
