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BANDA ACEH, Indonesia : In Indonesia's tsunami
wastelands on the northern tip of Sumatra island, little remains of whole
towns lost to the colossal forces that came thundering in from the ocean.
But across these battered shores, dozens of mosques still stand,
their minarets glinting defiantly in the sun - a phenomenon survivors in
the deeply Islamic region credit as much to divine intervention as robust
architecture.
"God's invisible hands
prevents the mosque's destruction," said Mukhlis Khaeran, who saw the sea
sweep away his home village of Baet outside the north Sumatran city of
Banda Aceh, but leave the neighbourhood mosque relatively intact.
"He punishes us for our greed and arrogance but He will protect
his house," Khaeran told AFP, his arms covered with injuries sustained in
the disaster that killed at least 100,000 people around the north Sumatran
province of Aceh.
Mosques are an everyday sight in most of
Indonesia, but especially in Aceh, credited with the being one of Islam's
main gateways into the archipelago of islands which now forms the world's
largest Muslim-populated country.
Despite a long-lasting
independence struggle, Aceh, parts of which are under traditional Islamic
sharia law, has remained a Muslim heartland for Indonesia, which mostly
practices a very relaxed interpretation of the faith.
Spiritual
beliefs in Aceh and around the Indian Ocean were tested to the limit on
December 26 when an epic earthquake sent towers of water crashing ashore,
obliterating virtually everything in their path.
But while some
spoke of "God's wrath", hundreds turned to their mosques, in panic for
shelter from the advancing tides and later for spiritual comfort in a time
of desperate need.
In the village of Kaju, also outside Banda
Aceh, hundreds of homes were annihilated while the local mosque suffered
only a few cracks in the walls.
"There is a saying among Acehnese
that a mosque is God's house and no one can destroy it but God Himself,"
said Ismail Ishak, 42, who was digging rubble from his crumbled house
while searching for seven of his relatives.
In Pasi Lhok, some 20
kilometres (12 miles) east of the north Aceh town of Sigli, 100 frightened
people sheltering inside their mosque were spared while almost every house
in the surrounding five villages was pulverised, according to chief cleric
Teungku Kaoy Ali.
In Meubolah, a town on Aceh's western coast less
than 150 kilometres (95 miles) from the quake epicentre which bore the
full force of the tsunami, leaving at least 10,000 dead, mosques stand
sentinel over a vanished town centre.
Banda Aceh resident Achyar
said when he saw the waves pounding in from the sea, his first instinct
was to turn and run for the nearest mosque.
"I climbed the mosque
tower and hung on to an electric wire until water receded," he said. "Many
of my friends, many of them ethnic Chinese, died because they climbed to
the second floor of their shops and were trapped there," he said.
Another, less divine, explanation for the survival of the mosques
is that many are built much more sturdily than most of the other
structures in the towns and cities of Aceh.
However one mosque in
Sigli was made only of wood but still survived unscathed despite all the
other buildings around it being destroyed.
Banda Aceh's grand
Baiturrahman mosque suffered partial damage from the quake and tsunami,
but proved invaluable to the city's survivors in the minutes, hours and
days that followed the cataclysm.
For many it became a rallying
place to search for missing friends or relatives, a makeshift hospital to
treat the injured and a morgue to collect the dead.
With much of
Banda Aceh likely to remain in ruins for months, residents were quick to
repay their debt to their cherished religious buildings, working swiftly
to ensure the Baiturrahman mosque was one of the first places restored.
On Sunday, some 300 survivors gathered for their first prayers
since their five-times daily ritual was halted - a major step on the long
road back to normality in Aceh. - AFP
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