Architecture as the Message: Ayodhya’s New Temple and Mosque

Architecture is not just about the shape of a building. It may also reveal the shape (the conditions) of its founders, but sometimes also the contours of how a community are meant to be perceived.

Per Hindu traditions, Ayodhya is the birthplace of the god Rama and the capital of his kingdom. Many Hindus believe that a particular place in the city is a sacred ground on which the god was born in human form, and that a temple stood there for centuries. Further, many believe that the temple was razed by Muslims to make way for a mosque in the 16th century. Whether a Hindu temple did indeed stand there is controversial, and evidence brought up to support the claim is unconvincing to most professional archeologists and historians.

What remains a fact, however, is that a mosque did stand on the site and that it had been commissioned by a Muslim noble under the rule of the Mughal emperor Babur (hence it was called Babri Masjid – Babur’s Mosque). Hindu nationalists – members of the RSS organization and the BJP party – eventually destroyed the Islamic structure in 1992, in an unlawful act that they perceived as a milestone in their movement to “liberate the birthplace of Rama.”

Those who destroyed the mosque were never punished for it, and neither was the mosque reconstructed – or the temple, for that matter. The site remained vacant, disputed, and politically sensitive for years. After decades of litigation (which started before the demolition), in 2019 the Indian Supreme Court finally decided that a Hindu temple could be constructed on the site. The decision was clearly in favor of the Hindu nationalists who by then were ruling India. To compensate the Muslim community for the lost mosque, the court ruled that a new one could be built on a different site. It was later decided that the place was to be Dhannipur, a village outside of Ayodhya. While this debate is well-known, at least in India, what I want to focus on here is what the designs of the two religious buildings tell us of the intentions of the people who decided on their construction. 

The construction of both buildings has already started (the temple in August 2020, the mosque in January 2021). The Ram temple at the disputed site is being built according to a traditional style. In a media appearance, architect Nikhil Sompura displayed designs that demonstrate that the building will be constructed in a classical nagara style, with its main body gradually rising from the gateway to a tower (shikhara), which will stand above the sanctum sanctorum. Only certain elements of the plan will be relative novelties – such as the fact that it will have five domes, not three – but it does not change the way that the design is undoubtedly traditional and vocally Hindu. Each of its pillars, for instance, is to present reliefs of Hindu deities or scenes from Rama’s life.

The Dhannipur mosque is a different case altogether. Not only has it been relegated to outside Ayodhya, but while the temple is to be named after the god Rama, the name of mosque is not yet known. It appears, however, that it will not bear Babur’s name anymore. Thus, while the temple is seen as a reconstruction, the mosque is perceived as a completely new construction. This is an ironic role reversal, given that we are sure that the mosque did exist and uncertain if a Hindu temple ever stood there. More importantly, however, the intended mosque does not even look like a traditional mosque, nor the one that had stood in Ayodhya.

On the website of the Indo-Islamic Cultural Foundation (IICF), we can see the new design. The new mosque is futuristic; it brings to mind new public buildings constructed in the West, such as opera houses or grand libraries, not sacred Islamic sites. Its main body is to be a glass-covered sphere, enveloped in winding, rounded walls of concrete, and a sort of a tower rising above it, more resembling the raised tail of an enormous animal than a traditional minaret. The “tail” may be seen as a minaret nonetheless, and the sphere may be recognized as a dome, but I doubt many people would even guess the building to be a mosque if they did not already know it.

Moreover, the mosque will be shadowed by a modernist, rectangular block of another building: a hospital. These and other facets point to an emphasis on its public utility aspect: the hospital is to serve malnourished children and pregnant women. The mosque is also to be “eco-friendly,” with saplings from around the globe planted around it to raise ecological awareness. 

It should be added here that the IICF was founded by the regional Islamic body that manages religious endowments (Uttar Pradesh Sunni Central Waqf Board) and by the government of Uttar Pradesh. The latter is now ruled by the same party of Hindu nationalists, the BJP, that rules India, and which most probably had a say in Supreme Court’s final ruling.

What is the intended message here? The mosque is modernist because the decision-makers believe that the Muslim community must modernize; its traditionalism is seen as an impediment to its progress. This is visible not only in the design but much more in the clear emphasis on aspects other than religion: health and ecology. 

The temple, in turn, is traditional to the core in its design, and the rhetoric around it in no way puts emphasis on the public utilities that may surround it. I do not doubt it will have some: the mosque is to have a community kitchen and the temple is likely to have one too, but there is no talk of a hospital to accompany the temple. The message is clear here: Unlike the Muslim community, the Hindu one does not need to modernize and reform itself, and does not need to prove the usefulness of its sacred institutions to society writ large. It is perceived by the decision-makers as already traditional and modernized at the same time.