An image through a Facebook post is being shared widely claiming that an image of Shivalinga, along with two Nandis (bulls) was engraved on Arab world’s oldest mosque, Raasa. Let’s fact-check the claim made in this post.
Claim: A Shivalinga and two Nandis (bulls) were engraved on the Rasa, Arab world’s oldest mosque.
Fact: There is no mention of ‘Rasa’ anywhere in the list of ‘Oldest mosques in Arab world’. Also, the mosque with the name ‘masjid agung sang cipta rasa’ is located in Indonesia and has no Shivling or Nandis engraved on it. All the evidence indicates that the viral picture is related to some unknown structure in Karnataka, India. Hence, the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
We searched the web for the “Rasa mosque” and found that there is no mosque in Arab nations with this name. The only mosque we could find is “ Masjid Agung Sang Cipta Rasa “ or “ Great mosque of Cirebon” located in the city of Cirebon, Indonesia. However, Indonesia is not a part of Arab world.
Also, in this Wikipedia article of World’s oldest mosques, there is no mosque with the name “Rasa”.
There is no picture or statement about Shivling/Nandi in any of the images, videos, reviews, historical articles related to Great mosque of Cirebon.
We ran a reverse image search and found that the viral image is shared by a user named “ Vivek P” on Tripadvisor website. In March 2016, he wrote a review about his trip to Delhi, Agra and Jaipur and shared this image in it.
With this clue, we searched for the tourist attractions in and around these cities but couldn’t find anything that matches the viral picture.
Upon zooming the picture, Kannada script can be seen above the Shivling, which translates to “Namah Shivaya” in English. Also, the group of people (bottom right) in the image resemble Indians. This indicates that the mosque like structure is most likely situated somewhere in Karnataka, India. Few Twitter users have also commented that the structure is from Karnataka. These tweets can be seen here and here.
We contacted Vivek P, Tripadviser website and trip organiser ‘Hemkund travels’ for more details about the image. This article will be updated as and when they respond.
To sum it up, it is evident that there is no evidence to prove that Shivalinga and Nandi are engraved on the largest mosque of the Arab world.
