It was a rare, overwhelming yet beautiful sight at the Hanuman temple in Tarsali. On Saturday, hundreds of devotees witnessed a group of ten odd qawwals offering prayers to Lord Hanuman through melodious qawwali.

Shri Maruti Mandal, the trustees of the temple, for the very first time, had invited the Muslim qawwals to perform in the premises, The Times Of India, reported.

Imran told TOI, “We immediately accepted the invitation as it is a symbol of communal harmony. Be it qawwali or a mantra, if sung with devotion, it reaches the god. We offered prayers to Lord Hanuman through qawwalis,”

The artists who were more than humbled by the temple trustees’ gesture said they ‘never differentiate between any religion.’

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One of the qawwals, Imran Mirasi said that the group had performed at several mosques and religious programmes, but ‘this is for the first time that we performed in a temple’. The qawwals were quite surprised when the temple trustees contacted them to ‘sing qawwali in the holy month of Shravan.’

Speaking of the experience, another qawwal named Akhtar Mirasi said, “we were amazed by the number of devotees who turned up to hear qawwali along with Hanuman aarti. This can happen only in our country.”

The performance began with a song dedicated to the country followed by few renditions in Gujarati and Hindi.