Muslim family donates land for world’s largest Hindu temple in India

A Muslim family has donated land worth more than $ 320,000 for the construction of the world’s largest Hindu temple in the Indian state of Bihar, according to local media reports.

Ishtiyaq Ahmad Khan, the man who has donated the land for the Virat Ramayan Mandir, is a local businessman who works in the eastern city of Guwahati.  

A great gesture…. Muslim Man Donates Land Worth Rs 2.5 Crore For Construction Of Hindu Temple In Bihar.

Ishtiyaq Ahmad Khan, a businessman from East Champaran based in Guwahati, pic.twitter.com/jLCVRnPoAv

— Oxomiya Jiyori 🇮🇳 (@SouleFacts) March 22, 2022

Acharya Kishore Kunal, head of the Mahavir Mandir Trust that is overseeing the construction, told India Today that Khan’s donation is a wonderful example of Hindu-Muslim harmony and that it would have been difficult to build this temple without the help of Muslims.

The Virat Ramayan Mandir is projected to be taller than the world famous 215-ft Angkor Wat in Cambodia, which would make it the largest temple in the world. The Trust has so far acquired 125 acres for the temple, and aims to acquire another 25.

The total cost of construction is estimated at around $ 65 million.

The Khan family donation offers a glimmer of hope for peaceful coexistence in an increasingly polarised India. Islamophobia, harassment and discrimination of the country’s Muslim minority has skyrocketed in recent years since Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s nationalist BJP took power in 2014.

Muslim girls in the southern state of Karnataka have been banned from wearing their hijabs to schools and colleges, while a firebrand Hindu monk who was recently re-elected to lead India’s largest state has been accused of staging extra-judicial killings against Muslims and lower caste Hindus.