Archives for May 2018

We need more news like this to show that we human can work together.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-43588435

As mason Nazim “Raja” Khan toiled over the construction of a Shiva temple in a Punjab village, a thought nagged at him.

There he was, a Muslim, building a Hindu temple. Yet there was no mosque nearby where he could worship.

“We had no place where we could offer namaz (prayers),” says the 40-year-old. “It wasn’t nice for our relatives when they visited.”

It rankled, so he raised it with the 400-strong Muslim community in his village of Moom, in rural north India. But they were too poor to afford the land.

‘Would you give us some land?’

Most Muslims in the area do unskilled jobs, such as casual construction work, while the community’s 400 or so Hindus and some 4,000 Sikhs are relatively well-off.

Fast forward 18 months – with the temple nearing completion – and Raja took an unprecedented step.

Earlier this year, he approached the temple administrators and told them: “You Hindus will soon have your new temple. And you already have an older one. But we Muslims have no place to worship, nor money to buy land. Would you give us a small area of your land?”

A week later, he had an answer. The temple management had decided to hand over nearly 900 sq ft (83 sq m) of vacant land next to their temple.