Maham Khan

It&rsquo;s happened. Again. Predictably. Inevitable.&nbsp;Perhaps it was bound to happen. In an era of unverified media and echo chambers amplifying right-wing Indian nationalist narratives, another seemingly innocent historical site has become collateral damage. This time, the 14th-century architectural marvel Adina Mosque in West Bengal has become the latest casualty of this aggressive Hindu nationalist revisionism. An innocuous post by Yusuf Pathan, brother of famed cricketer Irfan Pathan, documenting his visit to the historic Adina Mosque, was all it took.&nbsp; Pathan wrote on X (formerly Twitter): &quot;The Adina Mosque in Malda, West Bengal, is a historic mosque built in the 14th century by Sultan Sikandar Shah, the second ruler of the Ilyas Shahi dynasty. Constructed in 1373&ndash;1375 CE, it was the largest mosque in the Indian subcontinent during its time, showcasing the region&#39;s architectural grandeur.&quot; <figure class="fr-media"><img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/206772c2-98f7-433f-8c89-d7d47dbc6c7e-1.png" alt="Yusuf Pathan's post on X (Twitter) regarding Adina Mosque" class="fr-fil fr-dib"><figcaption class="caption-cover-image text-sm text-gray-600 italic">Yusuf Pathan&#39;s post on X (Twitter) regarding Adina Mosque</figcaption></figure> Historical fact, you might think. Not in today&rsquo;s India. No sooner had the post gone live than a digital avalanche of faux outrage, conspiracy theories, and archaeological fiction followed&mdash;largely driven by Hindu nationalist accounts hell-bent on turning every brick and dome into a misplaced remnant of a Hindu temple. Enter Grok&mdash;Elon Musk&rsquo;s latest toy and a large language model (LLM). For context, an LLM is a sophisticated system that processes and generates text by analyzing massive datasets, unlike a sentient intelligence But that didn&rsquo;t stop users from weaponizing it. An Indian X user, 𝐕𝐑 (@0xVeepul), asked Grok under Yusuf&rsquo;s post: &ldquo;Is the above information correct?&rdquo; To which Grok replied&mdash;calmly and factually: &ldquo;Yes, the information about the Adina Mosque is accurate based on historical records. It was built by Sultan Sikandar Shah in 1373&ndash;1375 CE and was the largest in the subcontinent at the time.&rdquo; <figure class="fr-media"><img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/7f765913-3caf-42fa-b5e2-cb16e2482cd1-2.png" alt="Screengrab from X" class="fr-fil fr-dib"><figcaption class="caption-cover-image text-sm text-gray-600 italic">Screengrab from X</figcaption></figure> Cue outrage. Unwilling to let facts spoil a good myth, other users doubled down. PlanH (@planH_In) declared with full nationalist indignation: &ldquo;Dear Yusuf Pathan, you are standing in the campus of one of the largest Hindu Temples, Adinath Temple, which was desecrated and occupied by Islamic invaders [&hellip;] It is time to undo the injustice and barbarity, and reestablish the temple.&rdquo; <figure class="fr-media"><img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/c63e9860-5048-49b7-958d-c0d2a1ba844c-4.png" alt="An Indian X user argues that the historic 14th-century Adina Mosque in West Bengal, India was originally a Hindu temple. (X)" class="fr-fic fr-dib"><figcaption class="caption-cover-image text-sm text-gray-600 italic">An Indian X user argues that the historic 14th-century Adina Mosque in West Bengal, India was originally a Hindu temple. (X)</figcaption></figure> Once that claim didn&rsquo;t quite hold up to scrutiny&mdash;or reality&mdash;goalposts were shifted. Another user, now armed with poorly cropped images of carvings, asked Grok: &ldquo;@grok Can you verify this image belongs to the same place?&rdquo; Again, Grok tried to inject sanity: &ldquo;The images you shared appear to be close-ups of carvings at the Adina Mosque in Malda, West Bengal. Sources like OpIndia, and India Today indicate the mosque incorporates Hindu and Jain motifs from reused temple materials, matching the terracotta figures and designs shown. They align with the site&#39;s documented architecture.&rdquo; <figure class="fr-media"><img src="https://paktv-assets-7d41fab8.s3.eu-west-2.amazonaws.com/uploads/ddc6e295-1651-47d7-8ff0-b9aa103f10fd-6.png" alt="Grok fact-checks an Indian X user's claim that images from inside the Adina Mosque prove it was once a Hindu temple. (X)" class="fr-fic fr-dib"><figcaption class="caption-cover-image text-sm text-gray-600 italic">Grok fact-checks an Indian X user&#39;s claim that images from inside the Adina Mosque prove it was once a Hindu temple. (X)</figcaption></figure> In other words: yes, some recycled materials were used. That&rsquo;s not the same as &ldquo;Hindu temple desecrated by Islamic invaders.&rdquo; But nuance, it seems, is not welcome in this arena. The storm continues, echoing the now infamous Babri Masjid debacle&mdash;and, more ludicrously, the attempts to &quot;reclaim&quot; even the Taj Mahal as a Hindu site. Babri Masjid: The blueprint of manufactured outrage The Babri Masjid dispute remains the cautionary tale that refuses to fade. Constructed in the 16th century by Mir Baqi, a general under Mughal emperor Babur, the mosque stood in Ayodhya until it was demolished by a Hindu mob in 1992. The justification? The belief that it was built atop the birthplace of Lord Ram&mdash;a claim without conclusive historical proof. As Reuters have reported, the mosque&rsquo;s destruction triggered nationwide communal riots, leaving over 2,000 dead. The Supreme Court of India later ruled in 2019 that the demolition was unlawful&mdash;while paradoxically awarding the land for a Hindu temple, citing archaeological surveys. These very Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) surveys, ordered in 2003, claimed the presence of a pre-existing structure with &quot;non-Islamic&quot; architectural features. Yet these findings were hotly contested. Archaeologists Supriya Varma and Jaya Menon, court-appointed observers of the dig, later accused the ASI of methodological flaws and ideological bias (Huffington Post, December 2018). In their 2010 article in the Economic and Political Weekly, they argued the excavation &quot;did not find anything that supported ASI&rsquo;s conclusion.&quot; Historian and professor Arshad Islam, in his academic paper Babri Mosque: A Historic Bone of Contention (International Islamic University Malaysia), went further&mdash;arguing that the narrative of Ram&rsquo;s birthplace was a colonial invention.&nbsp; According to Islam, the British used such stories to divide Hindus and Muslims and consolidate imperial control&mdash;a legacy still haunting the subcontinent today. The Taj Mahal: From mausoleum to mythical mandir Not even India&rsquo;s most iconic monument is safe. In 2018, BJP Member of Parliament Vinay Katiyar claimed the Taj Mahal was originally a Hindu temple, named &ldquo;Tejo Mahalaya,&rdquo; and suggested it would be &ldquo;converted&rdquo; into a temple soon (Al Jazeera, Feb 6, 2018). This was not satire&mdash;it was a genuine policy statement. Let&rsquo;s be clear, historical records, including the Padshahnama from the Mughal period, confirm the land for the Taj was legally purchased from Raja Jai Singh. Archaeological evidence, according to the ASI, has found no indication of a temple beneath the structure. And the locked rooms, long a source of conspiracy theories, have been periodically opened for maintenance, and photos are public. Still, the myth persists&mdash;thanks largely to one man: P.N. Oak. A self-styled revisionist, Oak founded the &ldquo;Institute for Rewriting Indian History&rdquo; in 1964 and proposed, among other things, that virtually every major monument in India&mdash;Muslim, Christian, or otherwise&mdash;was originally a Hindu temple. His claims were so fantastical that India&rsquo;s Supreme Court dismissed a case based on his theories as &quot;frivolous&quot; and labeled it a &quot;publicity interest litigation.&quot; His &lsquo;ideas&rsquo; still inspire popular media. In October 2025, The Taj Story&mdash;a film starring Paresh Rawal&mdash;reignited this theory with a tour guide character demanding a &quot;DNA test&quot; for the Taj Mahal. According to The Print&mdash;an Indian digital platform&mdash;the film resurrects long-debunked conspiracy theories under the guise of entertainment. A pattern of appropriation This is no longer about academic disagreement. This is ideological repurposing masquerading as historical correction. From the Babri Masjid to the Adina Mosque, and even the Taj Mahal, the pattern is clear: 1. &nbsp; &nbsp;Identify an Islamic monument. 2. &nbsp; &nbsp;Launch a campaign of pseudohistorical claims. 3. &nbsp; &nbsp;Demand &ldquo;reclamation.&rdquo; 4. &nbsp; &nbsp;Ignore evidence, facts, and historians. 5. &nbsp; &nbsp;Repeat. This systematic targeting of Muslim heritage is not accidental&mdash;it&rsquo;s a calculated cultural war waged via hashtags, LLM prompts, and WhatsApp forwards.

Hindu devotees wait to enter the Hindu god Lord Ram temple after its inauguration in Ayodhya, India, January 23, 2024. (Reuters)

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This systematic targeting of Muslim heritage is not accidental—it’s a calculated cultural war.

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Another historic mosque dragged into Hindu temple narrative storm

Another historic mosque dragged into Hindu temple narrative storm