Sarjah

Seven students from the Indian Christian community in Sharjah are on a special visit to various mosques in the UAE.

They are working on a coffee-table book on historic mosques where people of all religions visit. Their book is aimed at portraying the reality of the peaceful coexistence of all religions in the UAE.

The students, who are from three inter-related families are: Smarika S, 20, her brother Smaran, 11, Sarah Alex, 18, her siblings, Joseph, 16, and Hina, 13, Alex Lenjoo, 21, and her brother Joseph Lenjoo, 20, are part of the project.

These students and bought up in the UAE and they say their project is aimed at showing gratitude to the Sharjah rulers for their generosity towards their community and to promote harmony between Christian and Muslim communities. They are focused on architectural and historical aspects and interesting details not commonly know to the outside world.

Ingrid Nichols is guiding students on the project. "The efforts of these students coincide with the 125th anniversary of the International Publishers Association, which marks the world's appreciation of books from the Emirate of Sharjah, while the UAE is proud to host Expo 2020 Dubai," he added.

She said the book will be published with the support of Indian Association Sharjah.

Sharing details of their project, the students told Gulf News that out of 2,813 mosques in Sharjah, they are documenting 50. It will be an illustrated story book detailing the installation, construction and completion of each mosque.

To be named The Mosques of Sharjah, the 300-page hardcover coffee-table book aims to focus on the classical Arab architecture. Research data and photographs with specific angles will tell the reader about the time, royal decree, place and time-frame of the establishment of each mosque.

Indian students to a mosque

Team leader and lead author of the book, Smritika said that she and her church friend Sarah came up with the idea of ​​the book. Smritika said, “We came up with this idea last year during the Covid-19 lockdown. We realized the importance of being physically present and visiting certain places, especially places of worship, and it changed the way we live.”

Smarika recently completed her grade 13A level from St. Mary's Catholic High School, Dubai.

She said, “Around that time, we decided to do something memorable and historic that, we in a way, can give back to the country we are living in. Keeping Sarah's and mine interests together, we took this initiative. This year's Golden Jubilee of the UAE has made it a perfect opportunity for us to contribute to the celebratiions."

These girls shared their thoughts with their siblings and they too agreed to be part of the project.

Sarah, who graduated from Sharjah Indian School, explained, “We decided to be a group because we all had different areas of interests and talents that were needed for this project.”

Hannah, who currently attends the same school, said, “We had to find 50 mosques that had some kind of special meaning behind them – whether it was the architecture, how the journey took place or the people who worked for it.”

Smritika said that they have chosen each mosque on the basis of its architectural design, its ergonomics and the story behind it. “We visited various mosques, took pictures of them and collected information from the local people living nearby. The selected mosques include Noor Mosque, Saudi Mosque, and Ruler Durbar Mosque.”

She points out that design is an element that is much more associated with functionality than aesthetics. For example, there are many pillars inside the King Faisal Mosque and it is to provide a sense of rows, so that worshipers can gather in straight rows to pray.

This special design also contributed to creation of more space. The simplicity of the interiors is because of the logic that people should concentrate on their worship. Thus, every detail, even something not so noticeable, is important,” said Sarah.

Also, Sara said, there are many interesting yet unknown stories behind the mosques that they came across during their research.” We want to share those stories with the world through this project.”

The students said that they are gaining some valuable knowledge in various aspects like architecture and heritage. Smaran, a fifth-grade student of the School of Knowledge and the youngest member of the team, said they had to visit many mosques before zeroing in on those to be featured.