An India mosque at Malappuram in Kerala will render the sermons and speeches offered during the Friday prayer in sign language for the benefit of the hearing-impaired believers.

the new Masjid Al-Rahma that is offering this service is located in a 5-acre campus and can accommodate up to 500 people, reports the Times Of India. ‘Sermons at every prayer meet in the new mosque will have a sign language specialist and will be displayed on LCD screens. The mosque also has ramps, arm rests in toilets and wheel chairs for differently-abled believers.’

Musthafa Madani, chairman of Ability Foundation, a non-governmental charitable organisation that runs an institution with 300 differently abled students, said that the idea first struck them when they realized that hearing impaired students were skipping the Friday namaz as they were struggling to grasp the sermons.

Hussain Madavoor, who is the chief patron of the Ability Foundation, called the move to make the mosque convenient for the differently-abled a great leap for the Muslim community and a historic event. He said that everyone, from the NGO to NRIs to the local people, had joined forces to make this happen.