644-year-old dargah under HC scanner

MUMBAI: A 644-year-old dargah in Kalyan, over which two Muslim sects are at loggerheads, has come under the scanner of the Bombay high court. A division bench of Justices B H Marlapalle and U D Salvi on Thursday directed the State Waqf Board to decide within a week whether to allow Urs or religious rituals at the dargah. The dargah had been closed for the last 20 years.
While the Barelvis are ardent devotees of Sufi saints, the Ahle Hadees sect does not believe in visiting mausoleums of Sufi saints or dargahs.The Kalyan dargah, also called the Peerachi dargah, is the resting place of Sufi saint Hazrat Shaikh Ahmed Shah Fakih who came to India from Arabia around 1,500 years ago. The saint is the father of Hazrat Shah Maqdoom Ali Shah Fakih of the Mahim dargah. The Kalyan dargah was built during the Adilshah-Bahamani period. There is a mosque called Kot Bahar Masjid next to the dargah.
Madeena Shaikh, a devotee, said in the land records of 1919, the Kalyan dargah was shown to have been managed by the same trust that looks after the Mahim dargah. In 1944, the trust appointed Gulam Gaus Mohiuddin Jalal as mujawar or custodian to manage the Kalyan dargah. For over 60 years, Jalal was in charge of the shrine, but in 1988, the new generation of the Jalal family closed the dargah.
The petitioner claimed that in 1999, the court ruled in favour of the devotees to open the shrine, but the orders were not implemented. "The mausoleum of the saint is broken and damaged," said advocate Rizawn Merchant. "Despite orders to allow Urs, the police failed to provide protection saying that it would whip up communal tension in Kalyan," he added.
The Waqf board too allowed Urs at the dargah. The Jalal family trust told the court that they were not given a hearing before the Waqf board. The HC has asked the Waqf board to hear both parties and take a fresh decision before June 15 on whether to allow Urs. The new order will be placed before the high court on the next date of hearing is scheduled for June 17.