The Khanqah-e-Moula in Srinagar towers imposingly over the placid waters of the river Jhelum. The shrine is a fixture in Kashmir’s religious iconography. It is also, in many ways, a palimpsest; the imprint of one culture grafted upon the other.
Its tall pyramidal spire is inspired by Kashmir’s ancient Hindu temples, the intricate carpentry is Central Asian, the cusped Shah Jahani arches of its balustrade, as well as the foliated cornice on which it stands, are distinctly Mughal. The ornate calligraphy carved into its prayer niche harkens back to the rule of Afghan Durranis.
Symbolising so much eclecticism, the Khanqah of Srinagar shouldn’t have, then, become the theatre of the exclusionary rhetoric it did last month. Enraged over azadari (the ceremonial acts of grieving) being performed by the Shi’a mourners inside the Khanqah, some obscure religious groups in Srinagar alleged that the move was undermining the sectarian peace in Kashmir.
Religious mourning is observed in the Islamic month of Muharram when Muslims commemorate the killing of Hussain ibn Ali, the grandson of Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.
An outrageous call for the ritual cleaning of the shrine – which has since been withdrawn – was also issued, further evoking the feelings of hurt among the mourners. Some politicians also appeared to dabble in the row in what was seen as exploitation of religious fault-lines in Kashmir for political gains.
Last year too, Muharram had become the occasion to traffic in narratives reinforcing the perception of Shi’as in Kashmir as a community perpetually at odds with the Sunni majority – a political trope that is being redeployed with much enthusiasm.
Yet for all the preoccupation with this divisive rhetoric, the history of relations between both the communities is defined by significant cultural symbiosis – a dynamic that continues to build social fraternalism into the community engagement in Kashmir, and has helped Shi’as and Sunnis ride out the past moments of rupture.
The protests against mourners, as well as the sweeping generalisations about sectarianism in Kashmir, then, are based on a narrow understanding of evolution of Islam’s praxis in the Valley.
The fractious origins of the sect in Kashmir
Although the rise of Shi’ism as a prominent force in 16th century Kashmir did provoke hostility from the ruling elite of Kashmir at that time, yet the opposition – even when articulated in the idiom of sectarianism – was rooted more in the competition over access to state patronage, and less in religious dissensions.
Tuhfat-ul-Ahbab, the 16th century hagiography of Shamsuddin Araki, the Sufi mystic who introduced Nurbakshi Order (which is later absorbed into Shi’ism) in Kashmir, offers a detailed account of the resistance to his mission, the principle advocates of which were the Baihaqi Sayyids, a group of Sunni immigrants from Iran who had deeply embedded themselves into local power structures by forging matrimonial ties with the princes of ruling Shahmirid dynasty.
Yet at the same time, Araki was able to court the members of Kashmiri nobility such as Malik Saif Dar, who later rose to become the governor, and Baba Ali Najar, the pontiff (Sheikh-al-Islam), who headed the largest Islamic seminary in Srinagar. This gave Nurbakshis the kind of latitude they needed to energise their mission.
Later, the Shi’a nobles – whose numbers were by now aplenty – found themselves settled in the top echelons of power during the internecine battles between two former Sultans – Muhammad Shah and his uncle Fateh Shah.
At one point, Muhammad Shah made entreaties to Sikandar Lodhi, the Delhi ruler, to help him secure his throne in Srinagar, reveals Baharistani Shahi, the 17th century Persian text.
Once in power, he made Kaji Chak, one of the brightest Shi’a nobles, his vizier. After this period, however, the Sunni Sultans were reduced to being figureheads, while the authority became concentrated in the hands of their Shi’a vicegerents.
A medieval nostalgia coloured with modern bias
While the 18th and 19th century Sunni historiography, exemplified through the works of scribes such as Khwaja Azam Dedhmari and Peer Hasan Shah, laments the loss of Shahmirid authority as the liquidation of Sunni power at the hands of Shi’as, the reality, however, may have actually been more nuanced.
In her book Kashmir’s Contested Pasts, historian Chitralekha Zutshi warns against interpreting the composite political and religious terrain of medieval Kashmir through the binary of Shi’a versus Sunnis for, “it is more accurate to think of the period in terms of intra-Sufi competition for followers overlaid on political contests for power amongst the nobility, the lines of which cut across the Shia-Sunni divide,” she writes.
A notable fissure in the sectarian concord, however, took place in the time of Yaqub Chak, the last (Shi’a) Sultan of sovereign Kashmir before it was absorbed into the Mughal Empire.
The case originates from an episode when a Sunni preacher at Jamia Masjid was injured during an argument with a Shi’a soldier. Once the issue is brought to the notice of three (Sunni) jurists, they sentence the soldier to death.
The intermixing of politics and sectarianism
In response to protests from the soldier’s patron (who was a high profile Mughal emissary), the case was reviewed and the conclusion drawn that the jurists had maliciously pronounced the verdict. Therefore, a retribution was ordered and the jurists executed.
Qazi Musa, one of the errant judges, however, had escaped the punishment initially. But at a later stage, he was hauled into the court under a different pretext, and “put to sword”, triggering protest from the Sunni nobles.
It would be deceptive to read the events entirely through the prism of sectarian contestations because in the eyes of Yaqub, Qazi Musa may have been a legitimate political target. The author of Baharistan accuses him of obstructing the war effort in the run up to the Mughal conquest.
The accusations of animus towards Sunnis also begin to complicate when we realise that Yaqub’s father – from whom he had inherited the throne – was crowned as a Sultan by his Sunni vizier, Sayyid Mubarak Baihaqi.
Further, in deference to the Sunni majority, the official jurisprudence adopted under the Shi’a Chak rulers was based on the Shafi’i law, one of the four Sunni legal schools.
The shibboleths of otherisation
In the modern religious imaginary, Shi’ism in Kashmir is also otherised through invocation of the legacy of Hamza Raina, abbot of the powerful monastery associated with Suharwardi Sufi order on Hari Parbat hill in Srinagar.
Raina’s hagiographies, writes scholar Hakim Sameer Hamdani, project him as the religious luminary who “singularly revived the Sunni faith” at a time when Sunnis were “living under the oppressive Shi’a rule.”
Yet, the anecdotes enshrined in these expositions are also characterised by a significant narrative tension. In one of his treatises, Baba Dawud Khaki, Raina’s foremost hagiographer, quotes him as having likened the Shi’as with pigs.
In his other writings, however, he tempers this sectarian rancour, by building on his conversation with Baba Hardi Rishi (another Sufi mystic in the local Sunni pantheon), who is said to have told him that “it was not worthy of the pious to nurse malice” against them.
In his magisterial work Kashmir’s Transition to Islam, historian Muhammad Ishaq concludes that this change of attitude stemmed from the realisation that “Shia-Sunni conflict had undermined the strength of Kashmiri society.” It’s probably why Khaki became part of the patronage system under Kashmir’s Shi’a rulers, to the point that he authored several panegyrics eulogising Yusuf Shah Chak, the Shi’a Sultan.
The resilience of lost ecumenism
The loss of sovereignty at the hands of Mughals caused this rich tradition of self-reflection – rooted in the localised understanding of Islam – to gradually unravel. During (the late) Mughal, Afghan and the Sikh periods, Shi’as in Kashmir became vulnerable to several rounds of persecution.
However, the grim interlude soon came to an end at the dawn of the 19th century when, coming out of the shadows, the memory of shared historical legacy began to reanimate the local traditions. As Hamdani’s book reveals, Sunni custodians began to outsource the work of renovating the shrines to Shi’a artisans.
In the early 20th century, Sunni publishing houses started mass printing elegiac writings on the ‘martyrdom’ of Shi’a imams featuring Iran based Shi’a poets.
The community also began to develop the custom of earmarking a portion of sacrificial Eid meat for the day of Ashura – to show affinity towards Shi’ite sensibilities. It is in this period that new Shi’a mosques began to multiply in Srinagar.
Around the same time, the house organ of Anjuman Nusrat-ul-Islam, the organisation headed by Mirwaiz, published a leaflet terming Shi’as reverentially as ‘Ahl-e-Tashi’ – as opposed to the pejorative Rafizi (rejectors). Shi’a intellectuals like Munshi Ishaq funded newspapers such as Zulfikar that emphasised the need for sectarian unity.
This unprecedented modus vivendi between the two sects was a prelude to the political mobilisation against the Hindu Dogra rulers in which both the communities showed spirited participation. This way, Shi’a and Sunni cultural-religious temporalities in Kashmir have been, and continue to remain in dialogue with each other in ways which is rare for the subcontinent.
The author is a freelance journalist based in Srinagar. He was previously a correspondent with the Times of India.
