Every day, the giant loudspeakers at the Mahmud mosque in Hanifa crackle into life as Shamsuddin Chaliyan calls the faithful to prayers.
Nestled between a lush garden and a Jewish synagogue, the Ahmadiyya Muslim community’s mosque in this Israeli town symbolises a link with India that goes back to 1889 and thousands of miles away to Punjab, which is home to the Ahmadiyya movement. And with his prayer calls, Chaliyan unwittingly strengthens those bonds.

In 2004, the 30-year-old Chaliyan traveled all the way from Kerala to take on the muezzin’s job at the mosque. Giving him company in Northern Israel’s largest city, which has a population of 2,67,800 Jews and Arabs, are his wife and children.
Last month, on the 118th anniversary of the founding of the Ahmadiyya Muslim community, the cries of Allah were taken over by jashn (celebration) as devotees — both Hebrew- and Arabic-speaking — feasted on the traditional Israeli dish, ‘Khus Khus’, and soft bread dipped in sesame sauce.

Chaliyan, dressed in a white Pathan suit and a maulvi’s cap, settles down for a talk. “I applied for the muezzin’s job and got selected. It was just another career move,” says Chaliyan.

But today, Chaliyan loves his job and more so when Indians visit the mosque. The Ahmadiyya community boasts of 1,500 Indians in Israel as its members. “Not all the Ahmadiyyas among the Indian community here offer prayers at this mosque, but in three months, I see more families coming,” says Chaliyan.

If he misses Indian devotees, then the Indian tourists flocking to this port city make up for it. His house is usually packed with Indians, mostly tourists.

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