Tradition calls this the oldest mosque in India, yet it looks like a Kerala house, with no dome and no minaret.
It is the Cheraman Juma Masjid, in Kodungallur on the Malabar coast of Kerala, once a busy pepper port. The mosque itself gives its founding year as 629.
Tradition says a Chera king, Cheraman Perumal, saw the moon split, travelled to Arabia and accepted Islam. It says Malik ibn Dinar then founded this mosque.
Historians disagree. Some accept that the last Chera king embraced Islam, but the story appears in much later accounts, and some scholars date this building by its style to the fourteenth or fifteenth century.
Accounts say Portuguese forces damaged it in 1504, and it was rebuilt.
The style is local: white walls, wooden doors and a steep tiled roof. Inside, a tall brass lamp stands before an old carved wooden pulpit. Local people say a lamp here has burned for a thousand years.
Twentieth-century additions hid much of the old building, including a dome and minarets. A recent restoration removed them and brought back the sloping timber roof.
One legend states that the mosque was built in 629 CE. Other scholars are more skeptical and, based on the architectural style, have dated the structure from the 14th-15th century.
Legend of a Chera king
According to some legends, the Chera king witnessed a supernatural event mentioned in the Quran The story goes that the Chera king arrived in Arabia with a gift of ginger pickles for Muhammad and his companions and converted to Islam "at the feet of Prophet Muhammad".
According to historian M.G.S. Narayanan, "there is no reason to reject the tradition that the last Chera king embraced Islam and went to Mecca, since it finds its place not only in Muslim chronicles, but also in Hindu brahmanical chronicles like the Keralolpatti, which need not be expected to concoct such a tale which in no way enhances the prestige of the Brahmins or Hindu population."
Scholar Mehrdad Shokoohy however traced such legends to a much later accounts with different dating than the supposed earlier date. Historical research has found this story to be fictitious.
Cheraman(meaning respectful Chera) is a proclamation attribute given to great Chera kings. This mosque can't be associated to the Cheraman Perumal Nayanmar as his lifetime was in 8th century and prophet Muhammad lifetime is in 6th and 7th centuries.
Today and visiting
Several early Muslim or Arab travellers visited Kerala in medieval times. Among them were Sulaiman, in 851 CE; Persian traveller Nakhuda Buzurg, in 951 CE; Ibn E Batuta, in 1342 CE; and Abd-Al-Razzaq, in 1442; as well as many others. The Cheraman Juma Mosque was not mentioned in their respective writings.
Since 2005, A. P. J. Abdul Kalam, the President of India and Dr Shashi Tharoor, the Member of Parliament for Thiruvananthapuram have visited the mosque.
The History, Architecture and later sections are adapted from the Wikipedia article “Cheraman Juma Mosque”, available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Read the full article. Text has been shortened.
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