The Indo-Islamic Cultural Foundation (IICF), the trust overseeing the construction of the mosque in Ayodhya, has decided to try a different approach to funding the project that has not taken off yet due to paucity of money and administrative delays. They will relaunch the effort, this time with the vigour and pomp of the Ram temple. Taking the lead is the new chief of the mosque’s development committee, appointed in November 2023, Haji Arfat Shaikh, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader from Maharashtra.
Earlier, the plan, by Prof. S.M. Akhtar, the founder dean of the faculty of architecture at Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia University, had included a hospital, community kitchen, library, and a research centre, across 4,500 square metres. Now, the aim is to build one of the biggest mosques of India, “better than the Taj Mahal”, along with “the world’s biggest Quran that will measure about 21 feet”, says Mr. Shaikh.
