During his historic visit to Saudi Arabia, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was conferred Kingdom’s highest civilian honor, the King Abdul Aziz Medal, by the king during a palace ceremony in Riyadh.
The order is awarded to citizens of Saudi Arabia and foreigners for meritorious service to the Kingdom. The Council of Ministers makes the nominations but the King makes awards to foreigners himself when he finds this appropriate.
The Prime Minister Narendra Modi, gifted a gold-plated replica of the Cheraman Juma Masjid of Kerala to Saudi Arabia King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.
Prime Minister Modi is on a two day visit to Kingdom.
Situated in Thrissur district, the Cheraman Juma Masjid is believed to be the first mosque built in India by Arab traders around 629 AD, and symbolic of active trade relations between India and Saudi Arabia since ancient times.
According to oral tradition, Cheraman Perumal was the Chera King and a contemporary of the Holy Prophet who went to Arabia and embraced Islam after meeting the Holy Prophet at Mecca. Some years later, he sent letters to his relatives and the ruling chieftains of Malabar through his friends Malik bin Dinar and Malik bin Habib who, along with their companions, were then given permission by the local rulers to build the mosque at Kodungallur.
The mosque has an ancient oil lamp that is always kept burning and believed to be over a thousand years old. People from all religions bring oil for the lamp as an offering.
Earlier in the day, King Salman bin Abdulaziz accepted PM Modi’s invitation to pay an official visit to India after the two held delegation-level talks to cement bilateral ties between both sides and expand cooperation in diverse areas including trade, investment and counter-terrorism.