It is necessary for us to know how Islam entered the valley of Kashmir, and spread itself to an extent only second to Egypt, Iran, Afghanistan or Central Asia.
Islam made its way into Kashmir, says Stein, not by forcible conquest but by gradual conversion, for which the influx of foreign adventurers both from the south and from central Asia had prepared the ground. The adoption of Islam by the great mass of the population began towards the close of Hindu rule, and became an accomplished fact during the latter half of the fourteenth century.
Earliest Contact With Sind
It is the Sind that received the first Muslim from Arabia. According to the Chach-nama, which, is Mountstuart Elphinstone’s estimate, “contains a minute and consistent account of the transactions” during the invasion of ‘Imad-ud-Din Muhammad bin Qasim bin Abi ‘Aqil Saqafi and “some of the preceding hindu reigns”. Chach Brahman, the son of Silaij, and the father of Raja Dahir, usurped the kingdom of Sahasi, the son of Siharas who was the son of Diwaij. The boundaries of the dominions of Sahasi extended on the east to Kashmir, on the west to Makran, on the south to the shores of the ocean and to Daibal, and on the north to the mountains of Kardan or Karwan and to Qaiqan. He had established four malikhs, or governors, in his territory. The fourth of these governers was “at the great city of Multan and Sikka, and Brahmapur, and Karur, and Ashahar and Kumba, as far as the borders of Kashmir, were under his government.” Sahasi Rai, the sovereign of all this dominion, died and was succeeded by Chach Brahman who had entered service as a chamberlain to this sovereign. Dahir ultimately succeeded Chach.
Dahir was slain by Muhammad bin Qasim on Thursday, the 10th of Ramazan in the year 93 A.h. Dahir’s son, Jaisiya, went to wait on the Rai of Kashmir. A person bearing the name Hamim, the son of Sama, a Syrian, accompanied Jaisiya to Kashmir. The Ria of Kashmir ordered that, from among the dependencies of kashmir, a place called Shakalha should be assigned to Jaisiya. According to General Cunningham, this place may possibly be Kuller-Kahar in the salt range which, at that time, belonged to Kashmir. Jaisiya died in Shakalha and was succeeded by Hamim son of Sama. Hamim “founded masjids there, and obtained great honour and regard. He was much respected by the king of Kashmir.”
Hamim, the Syrian, is ostensibly the first Muslim to enter Kashmir. We have also to note that Muhammad bin Qasim, after the conquest of sind, came to Multan. Here “he erected a Jamia Masjid and minarets.” He appointed Amir Daud Nasr, its governor. Then Ibn Qasim proceeded to the boundary of Kashmir called the panj Mahiyat, at the upper course of Jhelum, just after it debouches into the plains. This is about the time of the caliphate of walid I.
In the course of this brief outline of the pre-Islamic period of the history of kashmir, we meet with Lalitaditya-Muktapida, who ruled from 725-753 A.c., applying to the Chinese Emperor for aid against the Arabs who were advancing from their bases in Sind and Multan, and of whom we hear for the first time in connection with the history of kashmir from the Rajatarangini. Lalitaditya-Muktapida, as Stein says, is misspelt in the Arabic characters as Muttapir. His reign according to the Islamic era dated from 107 to 136 A.H. Following Kalhana and Jonaraja in their chronology, we reach Rinchan during 1320-1323 A.c., or 720-724 A.H., which is the terra firma of the advent of Islam as a state religion in Kashmir. In the twelfth century of the Christian era, Stein tells us, the conversion of the Dard tribes on the Indus from Buddhism to Islam had already made great progress. This is about two centuries before Rinchan who becomes Sultan Sadr-ud-Din and the first Muslim ruler of Kashmir.
Islam neither affected the independence of Kashmir nor, at first, materially changed its political and cultural conditions. Sanskrit continued to be, for a considerable period, the language of official communication and record in Kashmir even after the end of Hindu rule. The various forms of official documents, reports, etc., which are contained in the Lokaprakasha, a handbook of Kashmirian administrative routine, are drawn up “in a curious Sanskrit jargon, full of Persian and Arabic words which must have become current in Kashmir soon after the introduction of Islam”. The use of Sanskrit inscription on a tomb in the cemetery of Hazrat Baha-ud-Din Ganj Bakhsh, at the foot of the Hari-Parbat in Srinagar. This inscription was put up in the reign of Sultan Muhammad Shah, sometimes in 1484 A.C. or 899 A.H. Brief Sanskrit inscriptions, without dates, have been found by Stein on a number of old Muslim tombs at Srinagar, near Martand and elsewhere.
Islam and Hinduism
“Islam is a force of volcanic sort, a burning and integrating force, which, under favourable conditions may even make a nation,”wrote the late Sir Herbert Risley. “It melts and fuses together a whole series of tribes, and reduces their internal structure to one uniform pattern, in which no survivals of pre-existing usages can be detected. The separate strata disappear; their characteristic fossils are crushed out of recognition; and a solid mass of law and tradition occupies their place. Hinduism, transfused as it is by mysticism and ecstatic devotion, and resting ultimately on the esoteric teachings of transcendental philosophy, knows nothing of open proselytism or forcible conversion, and attains its ends in a different and more subtle fashion, for which no precise analogue can be found in the physical world. It leaves existing aggregates very much as they were, and so far from welding them together, after the manner of Islam, into larger cohesive aggregrates tends rather to create an indefinite number of fresh groups; but every tribe that passes within the charmed circle of Hinduism inclines sooner or later to abandon its more primitive usages or to clothe them in some Brahmanical disquise.
Infant marriage with all its attendant horrors is introduced: widows are forbidden to marry again: and divorce, which plays a great, and on the whole, a useful part in tribal society, is summarily abolished.”
In Kashmir there is not much difference in food between the Muslim and the Hindus, for both enjoy mutton, fish and flying birds, though certain restrictions among the latter are, at times, vexatious. The orthodox Pandit, for instance, would not take tomato, onion, egg and fowl, reminding us of the tradition which allowed us to be starved or beaten but never to be kicked as it accompanied Yudhisthira to heaven!
Reference:
Sufi,G.M.D (1996). Kashmir Under The Mughals. Kashir: Being A History Of Kashmir(pp.75-79) Delhi:Capital Publishing House.
