No, Alamgir mosque was not built by Hindu Pandit to honour Aurangzeb, the claim is fake

The Holocaust Memorial was constructed in Germany to educate future generations about the holocaust that was systematic state sponsored persecution and murder of six million European jews by the Nazi German regime and its allies and collaborators.

Unlike Germany where the next generation is taught about the Holocaust, In India, Islamic propagandists and liberals follow the ritual of whitewashing the atrocities committed by the Muslim Mughal rulers who persecuted Hindu community to the core, raped Hindu women, destroyed temples and did forceful conversion of other religious groups till their reign ended in India.

Every now and then, propagandists invent fictitious tales to portray the Mughal emperors as tolerant rulers who believed in communal harmony and peace.

Sadaf Afreen, a journalist according to her bio, in a lengthy tweet (Archive link), she describes an alleged historical incident in which the pandit is said to have built the Dhanera Mosque (Alamgir mosque) in Varanasi after Mughal emperor Aurangzeb saved his daughter Shakuntala’s honour from a Muslim commander who wanted to use her as a pawn of his lust. The complete story can be read in the below tweet:

The tweet by Sadaf Afreen was taken from the user Mohammed Tanvir’s tweet, who is a journalist as mentioned in his bio.

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Fact Check

Reverse image searching for “Alamgir Mosque” during our research led us to many articles and research papers.

We found that the Alamgir Mosque is also known as the “Darera of Beni Madhav” which existed in the 16th century, because it was built by destroying a Hindu temple of Lord Vishnu (Madhav). The name Madhava, meaning “he who appeared in the Madhava lineage,” was given to Krishna, an avatar of Vishnu.

A French merchant who travelled from Persia to India between the years of 1630 and 1668, Jean Baptiste Tavernier, visited Banaras just a few years before Aurangzeb had ordered its demolition and the construction of a mosque that bears his name even today. He was astonished by the magnificence of the Beni Madhav temple, which was located at the top of Panchaganga ghat. In his travelogue, he referred to the temple as “the great pagoda“.

Moreover, the Beni Madhav temple was also mentioned in the works of the eminent saint and Hindu poet Tulsi Das. The patron deity of the “Bindu Madhav Temple” in Vaishnav Kashi, which belonged to that sect of Hindus who were devotees of Lord Vishnu in Varanasi, is mentioned at verse 61 of Vinaya Patrika by Tulsidas.

Did a Hindu Pandit build the Alamgir Masjid?

We located the archived records to show how inaccurate the Aurangzeb and Shakuntala story is. The texts from the Mughal archives were acquired by Francois Gautier’s non-profit organisation “Fact,” which is based on authentic Akhbarats from Aurangzeb’s Court that are kept at the Rajasthan State Archives, Bikaner, and which proves the demolition of the Beni Madhav temple in Banaras.

Following his conquest of Varanasi in 1669, the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb destroyed the Beni Madhav temple in 1673. He built the mosque on the site of the temple’s ruins and gave it the honorific name “Alamgir”—a title he had taken up after becoming the emperor of the Mughal empire. The demolition of the temple is mentioned in Akhbarat, a complete data regarding Aurangzeb’s political, economic, cultural, and other transactions.

Translation:

"Complying with the orders, Rafi-ul-Amin, the Diwan of Banaras has sent the report that the Temple of Nand-Madho (Bindu- Madhav) has been demolished, and, after this affair, awaits whatever orders are given regarding constructing a mosque there. The Emperor ordered that a mosque be built there." ~Siyaha Akhbarat-i-Darbar-i-Mu‘alla, 13 September 1962.

The above mentioned confirmation order in Persian is the proof that the Alamgir mosque was indeed built after destroying the temple on Aurangzeb’s order.

Prior to the demolition of the Lord Vishnu temple, Aurangzeb had also ordered to demolish the Kashi Vishwanath Temple. Its demolition is mentioned in Maasir-i-‘Alamgiri, an account of Emperor Aurangzeb’s(1620-1707) reign.

"It was reported that, “according to the Emperor’s command, his officers had demolished the Temple of Vishwanath at Kashi.”~ Maasir-i-'Alamgiri

It was first attacked in the 12th century by Qutb al-Din Aibak. Even though the attack damaged the temple’s pinnacle, Puja rites continued there for some time afterward. According to history, Mohammad of Ghori gave the order for the revered Hindu temple to be destroyed. During the reign of Sikandar Lodi (1489–1517), the Kashi Vishwanath Mandir was once again destroyed

The Mughal ruler Aurangzeb carried out the most significant attack on the Kashi Vishwanath Temple in 1669. He destroyed the temple and built the Gyanvapi masjid instead.

In the final step of our research, we tried verifying the claim if Alamgir mosque was built by a Pandit to honour Aurangzeb, however there is no historical evidence to support this claim.

Now, the question is whether the ruthless person who killed his own brothers and captivated his own father—a man who adhered to harsh sharia law—will defend the Hindu woman’s modesty against his own army commander?

Claim	The Alamgir mosque was built by Pandit to honour Aurangzeb after he saved his daughter’s modesty
Claimed by	Sadaf Afreen and Mohammad Tanvir
Fact Check	Fake

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