Al-Abrar Mosque
| Masjid Al-Abrar مسجد الابرار Al-Abrar Mosque |
|
|---|---|
| Masjid Al-Abrar, Kuchu Palli | |
 |
|
| Basic information | |
| Location | Telok Ayer Street, Singapore |
| Geographic coordinates | 1°16′49″N 103°50′50″E / 1.280278°N 103.847222°ECoordinates: 1°16′49″N 103°50′50″E / 1.280278°N 103.847222°E |
| Affiliation | Islam |
| Country | Singapore |
| Architectural description | |
| Architectural type | Mosque |
| Architectural style | Indo-Islamic |
| Date established | 1827 |
| Completed | 1855 |
| Designated as NHL | |
| Designated | 19 November 1974 |
Masjid Al-Abrar (Malay for Al-Abrar Mosque; Jawi: مسجد الابرار) is one of the earliest mosques in Singapore, and is located along Telok Ayer Street in the Chinatown district within the Central Area, Singapore's central business district. The mosque is also known by two other names – Kuchu Palli and Masjid Chulia. Al-Abrar is its official name, while Kuchu Palli, meaning "hut mosque" in Tamil, is a reflection of the mosque's first modest structure. Its location in Telok Ayer Street, in the heart of Chinatown, was where Chulia immigrants from the Coromandel Coast of South India, among the earliest immigrants to Singapore, settled when they came to Singapore, hence, Masjid Chulia. Note however that another mosque, Masjid Jamae, is also commonly called Masjid Chulia.
The building was gazetted as a national monument on 19 November 1974.
The early Tamil immigrants first established the Masjid Al-Abrar in 1827 with a makeshift thatched hut that they used for worship until it was replaced by a brick building between 1850 and 1855. An 1856 painting by Percy Carpenter, entitled Telok Ayer Street as seen from Mount Wallich, features an early visual record of the brick mosque. In 1829, the of the mosque was granted a 999-year lease for the land on which the mosque stood. The lease was held in trust by Hadjee Puckery Mohamed Khatib. In 1910, five new trustees were appointed. They were K. Mohamed Eusope, Thambyappa Rarooter, S. Kanisah Maricayar, V.M. Kader Bux and J. Sultan Abdul Kader. The trustees were responsible for all three Chulia mosques: Masjid Al-Abrar, Masjid Jamae and Nagore Durgha.
...
Wikipedia