What was once the heinous privilege of fanatic invading hordes from West Asia in the form of jihads, and violent European inquisitions against Sanatan Dharma, is now being kept alive in South India by political parties through tacit connivance, abetting forced conversions, desecration of places of worship, temple lands being brazenly encroached, the audacious theft of temple valuables, and violence against devotees.

Whether it is the DMK in Tamil Nadu, Congress in Karnataka, the Marxist party in Kerala or Congress in Telangana, the modus operandi is open hostility to the 5,000-year-old Sanatan Dharma and its followers. Every day sees a new form of harassment and indignity being heaped upon temple history, traditions, customs and rituals.

Presently, at the centre of a controversy is the famous Thiruparankundram Hill in Madurai — home to an eighth-century Murugan temple. In addition, there are third–fourth century BCE Jain caves and a seventh-century Kasi Viswanathar shrine. A Sikandar Badsha Dargah came up in the 14th century, in memory of Ala-ud-din Sikandar Shah, the last sultan of the short-lived Madurai Sultanate.

He was an Arab-origin Muslim ruler of a polity that emerged from the fragmentation of the Delhi Sultanate in southern India. His tyrannical rule in Madurai ended around 1378 CE, when he was defeated and killed in battle by Kumara Kampana, the crown prince of the Vijayanagara Empire, who then re-established Hindu rule in the region.

Today, Sikandar Badshah is revered as a shaheed, meaning martyr, by Muslims. A memorial, known as the Goripalayam Dargah — or, as Muslims call it, the Sikandar Mala Dargah — was set up in Thiruparankundram. In this context, it becomes necessary to examine what religious sanctity is accorded to dargahs in Islam.

Dargah worship is a controversial topic: while visiting graves for remembrance is allowed, many scholars (especially Salafi, Deobandi and Wahhabi) forbid practices often associated with dargahs, such as praying to or through the deceased, making vows, sacrificing animals or building shrines over graves, considering them forms of shirk (associating partners with God) and forbidden innovations (bid‘ah). They cite Islamic texts warning against grave worship, though Sufi traditions often incorporate such veneration as normal. Many Islamic texts (Hadith) forbid turning graves into places of worship, with Prophet Muhammad cursing those who did so, according to some........

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