Monday 04 Apr 2016 - 11:14 Makkah mean time-26-6-1437
Image from dnaindia
Riyadh, (IINA) - Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday gifted Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman a gold-plated replica of Kerala's Cheraman Juma Masjid, believed to be the first mosque built in the Indian subcontinent by Arab traders and preachers around 629 AD, The News Minute reported.
"PM @narendramodi gifted His Majesty King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud a gold-plated replica of the Cheraman Juma Masjid in Kerala," the prime minister's office tweeted.
"Cheraman Juma Masjid is symbolic of active trade relations between India and Saudi Arabia since ancient times," it said.
According to oral tradition, Cheraman Perumal was the Chera King and a contemporary of the Prophet (peace be upon him) who went to Arabia and embraced Islam after meeting the Prophet (PBUH) in Makkah, the PMO said.
Before he died in Oman due to some illness on the way back to India, he wrote letters asking the local rulers, to whom he had handed over his empire, to extend all help they could to Arab merchants who were planning to visit India.
The mosque has an ancient oil lamp that is always kept burning and believed to be over a thousand years old.
Many believe that the mosque is a testimony to Islam's arrival to India long before the Mughals came in from the northwest.
Modi is the fourth Indian prime minister to visit Saudi Arabia after Manmohan Singh in 2010, Indira Gandhi in 1982 and Jawaharlal Nehru in 1956.
SM/IINA
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