In October 2021, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar unveiled this new plaque emphasising the 800-year connection between India and Jerusalem.

How did this connection come to be?

Legend has it that Baba Farid, a Sufi saint from Punjab, spent 40 days in deep meditation at this place. Although he returned to Punjab, Indian Muslims going to Mecca began visiting the walled metropolis of Jerusalem to wish at this spot.

Over time, this place remodeled right into a shrine and a hospice for vacationers from India.

Who was Baba Farid?

Baba Farid, born in 1173 CE within the village of Kothewal close to Multan, hailed from a household that had migrated from Kabul to Punjab. He adopted the Chishti order and, was one of many first Sufi saints to put in writing his verses in Punjabi. Many of those verses are enshrined within the Guru Granth Sahib, the holy guide of Sikhs.

During his travels in Punjab and past, he visited Jerusalem, the place he prayed on the Al-Aqsa mosque and composed verses.  Lore has it that he discovered a modest lodge inside one of many gates of Old Jerusalem, often called Bab-az-Zahra amongst Muslims and Herod’s Gate amongst Christians. This lodge was located inside a compact khanqah—devoted constructions for Sufi orders, serving as each seminaries for the order’s followers, and hospices for vacationers— atop a small hillock inside Herod’s Gate.

After Baba Farid’s departure, the khanqah developed right into a hospice for vacationers from India, incomes the identify Zawiya Al-Hindiya, that means “the Lodge of Hind.” Remarkably, regardless of altering palms, together with Christian crusaders, Mamluks, and Ottoman rulers, the lodge retained its affiliation with India.

The medieval traveller Evliya Chelebi described Zawiya Al-Hindiya—the Indian hospice—as one of many largest Zawiyas within the metropolis in 1671. Navtej Sarna, a diplomat-author, uncovered a doc from 1681 that detailed a management dispute over the lodge, and one other doc talked about a sheikh named Ghulam Mohammad Al-Lahori who engaged with the Ottoman administration in 1824, ensuing within the growth of the lodge’s services.

The lodge’s prominence continued through the Ottoman rule, primarily below sheikhs from South Asia. However, a major shift occurred when the Ottoman Empire’s dissolution started in 1919. By 1921, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin Al-Husayni, took cost and initiated in depth renovations and rebuilding efforts. To fund these
initiatives, the Grand Mufti sought assist from Muslim patrons worldwide, together with the Muslim princely states in British India.

In 1921, the Grand Mufti knowledgeable leaders of the Indian Khilafat Movement concerning the ‘Indian Lodge’ in dire want of restore. Khwaja Nazir Hasan Ansari, a younger man from Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh, took on the duty. By 1924, he
had utterly renovated the lodge, which offered sanctuary to quite a few vacationers and pilgrims from British India for the following 15 years. During World War II in 1939, the lodge served as a refuge for troopers from British India preventing in North Africa.

How did the lodge get related to unbiased India?

After India gained independence, Nazir Ansari sought official recognition for the lodge from the Indian embassy in Egypt, cementing its Indian identification. The lodge has confronted a number of conflicts, enduring rocket strikes in 1952 and
the Six Day War in 1967. Over time, the Indian Hospice expanded to its present 7,000 sq. metres. It additionally hosts the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) and the Jerusalem Health Centre inside its premises.

In 2000, the hospice was the location of a gathering between former Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh and Palestinian chief Faisal Husseini.

There isn’t any Indian diplomat or visiting dignitary who doesn’t go to the hospice.

Today, Sheikh Mohammad Munir Ansari, born in Jerusalem in 1928, serves as its administrator. In 2011, he was honoured with the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman (Overseas Indian Award), the very best accolade conferred by the
Government of India on abroad Indians.

Despite the turmoil within the area, two Indian flags proceed to fly proudly on the lodge. Every August 15, the Ansaris mark Independence Day with a music all of them know: “Saare jahaan se achha, Hindustan hamara.”

This property is below the possession of the Waqf Board of India and is accessible solely to people of Indian citizenship or heritage. The hospice options six visitor rooms, a small mosque, a library, a eating corridor, and a kitchen. Guests are inspired to care for their very own cooking and laundry, utilising provides and tools offered by the hostel.

The Ansari household continues to keep up the hospice, providing hospitality, and a slice of India in Jerusalem.