Mosques in Old City spruce up for Ramzan

Hyderabad: With the holy month of Ramzan starting from dusk of Thursday, the mosques in Old City could be seen spruced up. Arrangements are being made to ensure maximum numbers of namazis are accommodated during the special prayers of ‘taraveeh’, which starts from Thursday night (while fasting starts from Friday morning).  

This year’s special arrangements include provision of Air Coolers in most of the mosques given the fact that this year’s Ramzan is the hottest after almost 33 years. The management committees of some mosques are ensuring that other utilities like fans are intact and some of the revenue generating mosques are also availing the provision of ACs during this summer. 

Highlighting the importance of the month some mosques have come up with decorative lighting, others can be seen with newly erected shamiyanah’s (tents) for providing shade to namazis from hot sun. 

Fully air-conditioned mosque 

Jama Masjid Siddiq E Akber which is located near water tank in Santoshnagar is now fully air conditioned and its management committee has spruced up the entire mosque about a month back.  M A Nayeem president of Masjid Committee said that this mosque was one of the oldest in the area, which was renovated last year. 

“For this year’s Ramzan which coincided with the summer, we have decided to install ACs, besides fixing of fans to the walls. All other ceiling fans were moved to other floors. Now this Mosque was fully air conditioned and all the non-functional lights were replaced about a month back.  We were able to complete all renovation work with the collections from generous men and revenue generated from shop rentals,” he said.  

Another mosque, Mohammed Farooq E Azam which is located at Edi Bazar of Yakutpura which is fund strapped could renovate the mosque from weekly collections.  Moulana SS Asrar Hussain Razvi president of Masjid committee said that there were no funds for mosques. Some minor renovation like colouring was done for this Ramzan with weekly collections of Rs 15,000.  

Maulana who is also heading Masjid e Hazrat Amrullah Shah Sahab lamented that for this Ramzan both the mosques were funds starved as no funds were sanctioned from authorities.  “Some minor renovation has been done for Amrullah Mosque, which include washing of mosque and prayer mat (Janimaz) and cleaning of ablution tank. And lighting decoration has been also done,” he said. 

Another mosque, Masjid-e-Lashkar Jung also spruced up with colouring and decoration with lighting with revenue generated through its shop rentals. Md Waris, president of Masjid Committee said that even though there was no collection of funds (chanda), the mosque was spruced up with rentals. “For this year’s Ramzan, colouring has been done to Mosque by Decoration with Lighting and as because its peak summer two desert coolers have been installed,” he added. 

BY MM Farooqui