Lucknow | Reacting to a controversy over namaz on roads, All-India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) member Khalid Rasheed Farangi Mahli on Sunday said prayers should not be offered by causing inconvenience to anyone.
“Namaz is a prayer before Allah. It is not right to offer the prayer by causing inconvenience to anyone,” Farangi Mahli told PTI. However, he said namaz on roads was not a daily affair and seen only on Friday.
“In some mosques, when there is no space left for people, they offer prayers on the road on Friday. But if anyone has any objection to it, then the namazis should make an extra effort to reach the mosque in time for it,” he added.
Speaking on the recent alleged incidents of people being forced to chant “jai shri Ram’, Farangi Mahli said,”As far as Hinduism is concerned, there is no scope of force. Lord Ram has not said anywhere that his followers should forcibly get slogans raised for him.”
“Lord Ram is a maryada purshottam. How can anyone behave in an undignified manner in his name,”he asked.
“Those who are behaving in this manner need to read more about Lord Ram so that they could know more about the one in whose name they are doing such things,” Farangi Mahli said.
The general secretary of the AIMPLB, Maulana Wali Rehmani, however, said that it was not wrong according to the shariat to offer namaz at an open place. He refused to elaborate on it when told that roads were not open spaces.
“Let people read into what I have said,” he said, adding that it had become a habit of some “saffron-clad people” to behave in an arbitrary manner against Muslims.
In Hathras, some Hindutva organisations had objected to namaz on roads and had organised the recital of Hanuman Chalisa outside the Hanuman temple in Sikandararau area and had said it should be done every Tuesday.
In Aligarh too, some right-wing Hindutva organisations had decided to recite Hanuman Chailsa but the district administration took prompt action and banned all religious acitivities on roads.
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