This Pune Mosque Is Dispelling Prejudices Against Muslims And Islam By Inviting Everyone

‘Chalta kya hai masjid ke andar?” It was a question 28-year-old Vikas Gavali had thought of often, but never ended up asking even his closest Muslim friends. “There was always a fear. What if they felt bad,” he says. In December last year, Gavali confronted this apprehension of the unknown, when he visited a mosque for the first time in Pune’s Azam Campus locality. He asked questions about Islam, and wandered through the white corridors and long halls covered in blue carpets.

Gavali was among the 350 people who visited the mosque in a programme helmed by the Pune Islamic Information Centre (PIIC). For the first time in many years, the mosque at Azam Campus, an educational hub, opened its doors to men and women from other communities. The idea was to allay doubts and dispel misconceptions around the religion and its practices.

BCCL