Confusion over land for Mosque – in Ayodhya city or district

Where exactly the mosque will come up in Ayodhya? In Ayodhya city or the Ayodhya district?

Babri Masjid (IANS Photo)
Babri Masjid (IANS Photo)
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Biswajeet Banerjee

Where exactly the mosque will come up in Ayodhya? In Ayodhya city or the Ayodhya district?

This question has started taking rounds in Muslim community as the Supreme Court has failed to specify whether five-acre land to Muslims would be given in Ayodhya town or Ayodhya district. There is an apprehension that taking advantage of the renaming of Faizabad to Ayodhya the Yogi government may give land at the outer periphery of Ayodhya.

In its landmark Ayodhya verdict on November 9 the Supreme Court has ordered that five acres of land should be handed over to the Sunni Central Waqf Board “either from the acquired 67 acres or elsewhere in Ayodhya”.

The order says:  “The land shall be allotted either by (a) The central government out of the land acquired under the Ayodhya Act 1993; or (b) The state government at a suitably prominent place in Ayodhya,”

Muslims believe that in the absence of clarity in the order of whether the land would be given in Ayodhya city area or in Ayodhya district the Yogi government may give land at far-flung place of Ayodhya. “Till November 2018 Ayodhya and Faizabad were different. The word Ayodhya meant Ayodhya city area while Faizabad represented the whole district of which Ayodhya was a part. After Yogi Government renamed Faizabad into Ayodhya, the word Ayodhya now means the whole district,” Syed Sadiq Ahmad, a Muslim scholar said in Lucknow.


He said that in this scenario the Government can give land at the border of Ayodhya saying it had abode by the order of Supreme Court. “The RSS and its frontal organizations had already advocated that the Mosque should be built across Saryu. The right-wing organizations say that no mosque should come up in the periphery of Ram Janmabhoomi. There is an apprehension that the Yogi government could use the SC order to fulfill RSS design,” he said.

The Muslim clerics and leaders say that the Government should give land within acquired 67 acres of land of Ram Janmabhoomi Complex. Haji Mahboob, one of the plaintiffs said that the government should allot land near the old chainsaw machine within the acquired 67 acres. The Babri Masjid stood within that boundary, he said.

The 67 acres of land was acquired in 1991 by the government.

All India Muslim Personnel Law Board member and Supreme Court lawyer Jaffaryab Jilani said that state government cannot play with words while allocating land for construction of a mosque. “In that order, SC has issued word Faizabad many times. So, when the court said Ayodhya it means Ayodhya city, he said.

Ayodhya title suit litigant Iqbal Ansari on Tuesday has demanded that the government should give the five acres of land within the 67 acres of acquired land near the Ram Janambhoomi.


A section of Muslim clerics said that an Islamic University along with the mosque should be constructed.

During the meeting with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath Maulana Salman Hussain Nadvi, he demanded an Islamic University along with the mosque in Ayodhya.

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