ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

Are Mosques Essential for India’s Muslims?

SHREYAS SARDESAI

Shreyas Sardesai (shreyas.sardesai@gmail.com) is a Research Associate at the Lokniti

progamme of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi.
Vol. 53, Issue No. 44, 03 Nov, 2018

The empirical analysis offered by Lokniti–CSDS's surveys shows the centrality of mosques
for India's Muslims.

In October 2018, the Supreme Court declined to set up a larger bench to review its 1994
verdict that had observed that a “mosque is not an essential part of the practice of the
religion of Islam” and that “namaaz by Muslims can be offered anywhere, even in the open.”
The apex court’s contention was that the observation in 1994 was made in the limited
context of acquisition of land by the state and that it would have no bearing on the title suit
in the Ayodhya matter. In his dissenting note to the 2:1 order, Justice S Abdul Nazeer
disagreed with the majority opinion of his non-Muslim counterparts. Citing the 1954 Shirur
Mutt case, Justice Nazeer wanted the 1994 case to be referred to a larger bench for it to
look into the question of “whether … an essential practice can be decided without a detailed
examination of beliefs, tenets and practice of the faith in question” (M Siddiq (D) Thr Lrs V
Mahant Suresh Das And Others Etc 2018)

While commenting on the beliefs and tenets of religions is an exercise best left to
theologians and is beyond the scope of this article or my expertise, Justice Nazeer’s call for
an “examination” provides survey researchers like me a context and an opportunity to share
ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

some data on the religious behaviour and practices of followers of Islam in India and other
religions as well. Scriptural evidence aside, what is the actual Indian reality regarding
mosque, temple, church and gurudwara attendance? What does behavioural evidence tell
us?

The Lokniti programme of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies, with which I’m
associated, has, over the years, collected a good amount of basic data on the religious
practices or habits of Indians. During every Lok Sabha election since 2004, as part of its
National Election Study (NES), Lokniti has been consistently asking voters belonging to all
faiths about certain aspects of their religious behaviour—how often they visit their
respective places of worship, how regularly they pray (do puja, paath, namaz, prayer), and
how frequently they observe religious fasts (vrats, rozas, etc). The findings thrown up by
these questions are quite revealing, especially in the context of the apex court’s judgment
and Justice Nazeer’s dissent.

Who is More Likely to Visit A Place of Worship?

Out of the four major religious communities of India—Hindus, Muslims, Christians and
Sikhs—it is Muslims who are most likely to visit their place of worship, the mosque, on a
daily basis. In fact, they are twice as likely to do so compared to Hindus visiting a temple
daily. In 2014, while one in every three Muslim voters (33%) said that they visited a masjid
daily (Table 1), the proportion of Hindu respondents who said that they go to a mandir every
day was only about 17% or one in every six (Table 2). Among Sikhs, the proportion of those
visiting a gurdwara daily was found to be 31% (Table 3) and among Christians, those
visiting a church every day were around 15% (Table 4). Remarkably, among the adherents
of all four religions, these figures of daily visits to their respective places of worship have
remained quite stable during the last decade or so. In 2004, 31% of Muslims, 16% Hindus,
16% Christians and 27% Sikhs were found to be visiting the mosque, temple, church and
gurdwara, respectively, on a daily basis. This stability in everyday behaviour, with only
minor ups and downs, gives one even more confidence in the survey data being reported
here.

Table 1: Frequency of Muslims Visiting a Mosque

Daily Weekly Only on festivals Never N (Sample)

Year
(%) (%) (%) (%) size
2004 31 29 17 23 3,100
ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

2009 31 31 19 19 4,597
2014 33 34 17 16 2,756
2018* 34* 34* 22* 10 1,935

Note: No response has been merged with the never category. *In 2018, the categories
offered were regularly, sometimes, rarely and never.

Source: National Election Studies in 2004, 2009 & 2014 & Mood of the Nation Survey in
January 2018 by Lokniti–CSDS.

Table 2: Frequency of Hindus Visiting a Mandir

Daily Weekly Only on festivals Never N (Sample)

Year
(%) (%) (%) (%) size
2004 16 29 43 12 21,616
2009 18 33 39 10 29,682
2014 17 36 38 9 18,002
2018* 17* 45* 30* 8 11,568

Note: No response has been merged with the never category. *In 2018, the categories
offered were regularly, sometimes, rarely and never.

Source: National Election Studies in 2004, 2009 & 2014 & Mood of the Nation Survey in
January 2018 by Lokniti–CSDS.

Table 3: Frequency of Sikhs Visiting a Gurdwara

Daily Weekly Only on festivals Never N (Sample)

Year
(%) (%) (%) (%) size
2004 27 31 33 9 684
2009 30 29 32 9 668
2014 31 40 23 6 432
2018* 31* 49* 10* 9 295

Note: No response has been merged with the never category. *In 2018, the categories
offered were regularly, sometimes, rarely and never.

Source: National Election Studies in 2004, 2009 & 2014 & Mood of the Nation Survey in
January 2018 by Lokniti–CSDS.

Table 4: Frequency of Christians Visiting a Church

ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

Daily Weekly Only on festivals Never N (Sample)

Year
(%) (%) (%) (%) size
2004 16 56 20 8 877
2009 12 60 24 4 942
2014 15 65 16 4 610
2018* 37* 33* 20* 10 304

Note: No response has been merged with the never category. *In 2018, the categories
offered were regularly, sometimes, rarely and never.

Source: National Election Studies in 2004, 2009 & 2014 & Mood of the Nation Survey in
January 2018 by Lokniti–CSDS.

Christians were most likely to say that they visit the church on a weekly basis since church
attendance on weekends is an important religious practice for many followers of
Christianity. Their regularity of visits to the church therefore needs to be measured not on a
daily basis, but in weekly terms. Recently, during a nationwide survey conducted by Lokniti
in January 2018, when the option categories offered to the respondents for the same
question were worded differently as “regularly” (instead of daily), “sometimes” (instead of
weekly), “occasionally” and “never,” most Christian respondents opted for the “regularly”
category and not the “sometimes” option (Table 4). This indicates that they perceived their
weekly visit to the church as a regular habit.

Hindus and Sikhs are also more likely to visit their respective places of worship on a weekly
rather than daily basis. In fact, weekly visits among Hindus to a temple and among Sikhs to
a gurdwara have gone up steadily over the years. Over a decade ago, in 2004, Hindus and
Sikhs were mostly visiting a temple or a gurdwara occasionally, that is, only on festivals.
Today, however, most of them prefer visiting their respective places of worship on a weekly
basis: 45% among Hindus and 49% among Sikhs. Occasional visits have registered a sharp
decrease.

Among Muslims too, weekly visits to the mosque have increased from 29% in 2004 to 34% in
2014. But unlike Hindus and Sikhs, this rise has not come at the expense of occasional visits
since the community has also seen a gradual increase in the proportion of those who visit
the mosque only during festivals (from 17% to 22%). Muslims, in fact, are the only
community that has seen a steady and consistent rise in “place of worship” visits across
categories, be it on a daily basis, weekly basis, or occasionally. This has resulted in a sharp
drop in the proportion of Muslims who never visit the mosque. About a decade and a half
ago, nearly one in every four (23%) Muslim in India never visited a mosque. In 2018, the
ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

figure has come down to only one in every ten (10%). This steep decrease is largely on
account of greater participation of women. Over the years the gender gap among Muslims
with respect to visiting a mosque has shrunk steadily and considerably (Table 5). In 2004,
47% of Muslim women reported never visiting a mosque. This figure dropped to 36% in
2009, then to 31% in 2014, and was merely 18% at the start of 2018. Today, as per
Loknit–CSDS’s most recent survey, about one in every four (23%) Muslim women visits a
mosque regularly and one in three (36%) does so sometimes.

Table 5: Muslim Women Visit the Mosque Far More than They Used to a Decade Ago and
with Greater Regularity

Visit mosque Visit mosque Never visit

Visit mosque Only N (Sample)
Daily Weekly mosque
on festivals (%) size
Year (%) (%) (%)
Muslim Muslim Muslim Muslim Muslim Muslim Muslim Muslim Muslim Muslim
men women men women men women men women men women
2004 43 17 37 18 16 18 4 47 1,706 1,394
2009 42 19 38 22 16 23 4 36 2,432 2,165
2014 45 20 38 28 13 21 4 31 1,469 1,287
2018* 43 23 32 36 22 23 3 18 1,034 901

Note: No response has been merged with the never category. *In 2018, the categories
offered were regularly, sometimes, rarely and never.

Source: National Election Studies in 2004, 2009 & 2014 & Mood of the Nation Survey in
January 2018 by Lokniti–CSDS.

Who Is More Likely to Pray on a Daily Basis?

In addition to being more regular in visiting their place of worship, Muslims are also far
more likely to pray on a daily basis compared to followers of other religions. During all the
survey years (2004, 2009, 2014, and 2018) at least three in every five Muslims reported
offering namaz on a daily basis. On the other hand, the proportion of Hindus praying daily
has consistently been less than half. Christians and Sikhs have usually tended to pray more
regularly (that is, on a daily basis) than Hindus in proportionate terms, but always less than
Muslims (Table 6).

Table 6: Frequency of prayer (puja, namaz, prayer, paath)

Daily Weekly Never

Only on festivals (%)
Year (%) (%) (%)
H M C S H M C S H M C S H M C S
ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

2004 45 63 56 45 21 23 24 26 25 11 12 20 9 3 8 9
2009 48 65 55 50 23 21 28 21 21 11 13 17 8 3 4 12
2014 44 60 52 54 26 27 33 25 23 10 9 11 7 3 6 10
2018* 44 60 51 41 36 30 26 39 14 8 10 3 6 2 13 17

Note: No response has been merged with the never category. *In 2018, the categories
offered were regularly, sometimes, rarely and never. H=Hindus; M=Muslims; C=Christians;
S=Sikhs.

Source: National Election Studies in 2004, 2009 & 2014 & Mood of the Nation Survey in
January 2018 by Lokniti–CSDS.

While this finding of a higher proportion of Muslims praying daily in comparison to followers
of other religions is not surprising, given that praying five times a day is considered an
obligatory duty of Muslims, what is interesting and significant in the context of the apex
court’s recent judgment is that nearly half the Muslims who offer namaz daily have also
been found by the Lokniti–CSDS surveys to be visiting the mosque daily. This can be seen
across all years (Table 7). While one cannot be absolutely certain that most of these daily
namazees who are also visiting the mosque daily must be doing so for the purpose of
offering namaz, it would be fairly reasonable to make such an assumption. The same surveys
also consistently reveal that 90% of Muslims who visit the masjid daily also offer namaz
daily.

Table 7: Half of those who offer namaz daily also visit the mosque daily, among Hindus only
a third of those who do puja daily also visit the temple daily

Daily namazees who also visit mosque daily Daily puja performers who also visit temple daily
Year
(%) (%)
2004 47 32
2009 46 33
2014 50 34
2018* 50 33

Note: *In 2018, the category offered to the respondent was "regularly" instead of "daily."

Source: National Election Studies in 2004, 2009 & 2014 & Mood of the Nation Survey in
January 2018 by Lokniti–CSDS.

The salience of these findings regarding Muslim praying habits gets underscored further
when juxtaposed with the praying practices of other religions. Lokniti surveys have
consistently found that only one in every three Hindus who does puja daily visits the temple
daily. Said in another way, two-thirds of Hindus who pray daily do not necessarily do so at a
temple (Table 6). As far as Sikhs are concerned, half of them who pray daily also visit the
ISSN (Online) - 2349-8846

Gurdwara daily, a figure similar to the one observed among Muslims.

This comparative analysis of religious behaviour as deduced from survey data shows that a
mosque is as important/significant for India’s Muslims for the purposes of prayer and
worship as a temple is for Hindus, a Gurdwara for Sikhs and a church for Christians. In light
of this behavioural reality, the argument of (in)-essentiality made by the Supreme Court in
1994 with respect to the place of worship of one particular religion (Islam) does seem
unfair, and needed a review.

References:

Case Cited
M Siddiq (D) Thr Lrs V Mahant Suresh Das And Others Etc (2018): Civil Appeal Nos10866–-
10867 of 2010, Supreme Court judgment dated 27 September.

Image-Credit/Misc:

Image Courtesy: Modified. Wikimedia Commons/ Nimitnigam [CC BY-SA 3.0]