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Islam’s Kashmir Story
For nearly 300 years, Muslim conquerors from Baghdad and Turkey tried to overtake Kashmir, then a strong Hindu kingdom. Kashmir’s Hindu lords once defeated Caliph’s Sindh general and weather prevented...
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Kashmir’s Mlecch Era
Abortive takeover bids did not prevent the Muslim influences from impacting the Kashmir society. Long before Kashmir’s transition to Islam, the new faith existed and thrived even during the Hindu rule,...
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Hindu Subjects, Muslim Rulers
As the internecine fighting between feudal lords and kings triggered an unending appetite for Turkish mercenaries, Muslims from the neighbourhood trickled in as traders, fighters, refugees, and...
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A Shariah Sultanate
Within decades of their rule when Muslims were still a minority, Shahmiri Sultans took the advice of their spiritual leaders seriously and implemented Shariah, writes Sara Wani At the time Shahmirs’...
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Sarore Sorrow
The morning police raid on Gujjar hutments in Samba is not an isolated incident. Syed Asma talks to the community living under the fear of extremism in a highly politicised belt A woman standing near...
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The Big Jama’at
Had Jama’at-e-Islami not offered its resource base and the vast organizational skeleton, MUF might not had been as important as it eventually proved, reveals Syed Asma Jama’at-e-Islami J&K’s...
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Relic Resurgence
After remaining shrouded for centuries, an old city family stumbled upon the Prophet’s relics and rare manuscripts fundamental to Kashmir’s transition to Islam. Establishing the twin lineages in their...
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Spare The Faith
Masood Hussain Army officers “offering Nimaz” at a function in Srinagar. After formally throwing open a bookstore in Dal lake in May, Chief Minister Ms Mehbooba Mufti made an apparently innocuous...
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Godman’s Goose
In a dusky Pulwama hamlet residents invited a faith-healer, rehabilitated him and created a huge asset base for a spiritual centre by contributing land. After Pir’s demise, when the property passed to...
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Ravaged Rohingyas
For almost half a decade, hundreds of Rohingya Muslims are living in Jammu almost in pathetic state. Aakash Hassan visits the Narwal ghetto to understand the situation in which Burma stripped them of...
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Faithfully Disowned
As the ruling bipolar grouping gets into second year of its version 2.0, tensions are increasing within the small Muslim minorities scattered across Dogra heartland in Jammu plains. With NC, and now...
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Cow Concerns
After police was forced to act against right wing cow vigilantes, a situation was created in Muslim majority Reasi’s main town that they were bailed out instantly. At the same time, they also arrested...
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Ramzan Times
Behind the visible economic slowdown, many things happen during the yearly month of fasting. Saima Bhat offers an idea about how people try to spend their hot, long month of fasting in Srinagar On May...
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A Mosque for all
Before a small misunderstanding over praying space between two communities could have escalated into a major crisis, someone came with a novel solution. Four decades later both Shias and Sunnis use the...
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A beautiful Edifice
The famous Imam Bargah of Budgam is blend of traditional Iranian and modern architecture. Aabid Hussain reports how the space is serving people since 1857 The story of Imam Bargah, a beautiful edifice...
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The Conversation
When Amarnath pilgrims from different cultures, economic backgrounds and languages ride a horse in Chandanwari or hire a Palki to the cave, they stay with Kashmiris for three days at least. They do not...
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Buta Malik Lives!
After a formal Board took over the management of the yearly Amarnath yatra, stakeholding of Purohits, Mahant’s and the Maliks’ of Batakote was over. But Aakash Hassan met a Malik who does not feel...
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A for Amarnath
In a situation dominated by a historic dip in tourist footfalls in Kashmir and Gau Rakhshaks managing mixed population areas in mainland India, when a Hindu pilgrim bus came under militant attack,...
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Arzan Kakh
Pandits left and kept their keys with Muslims. Pandits who stayed back died and were cremated by Muslims. This all is reported already. But Saqib Mir tells the amazing story of Nissar, a man who took...
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Sanctum Security
Part of the faith heritage, shrines help decipher Kashmir’s historic and socio-economic narrative. In twenty-first century, a shrine is lost to a fire every five years. Though different government...
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