Uttar Pradesh Tourism

Tour Overview

Much of the Indian city of Ayodhya is dotted with small Hindu temples. But there is a particular site with no temple on it, which draws worldwide attention and remains a flashpoint of Hindu-Muslim religious tension. For centuries, a mosque, known as the Babri Masjid, stood on this site in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh. The founder and first emperor of Mogul India, Zahir ud-Din Muhammad Babar had ordered it built nearly 500 years ago. It took two years to erect the structure, which was completed in 1529, the year before his death. While a functioning mosque until the early 1990s, its history has been controversial.

Ayodhya was a fabled mythical city-state. Legend has it that it was the kingdom of Hindu god Ram, who is believed to have been born exactly on the spot where the Babri mosque was built. A legend being a legend, there are no verifiable historical records to substantiate this claim. That, however, never prevented the Hindu majority of Mogul India, ruled by an Islamic minority, from holding on to this view. Archaeological evidence suggests the site had a temple structure prior to the building of the mosque.