Islam in Kashmir: Difference between revisions

His reign terminated the long-standing syncretic and tolerant culture of Kashmir, and in its rigorous abidance by Sharia, severely oppressed the Kashmiri Hindu population.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Aggarwal|first=Neil|date=2008-07-01|title=Kashmiriyat as Empty Signifier|url=https://doi.org/10.1080/13698010802145150|journal=Interventions|volume=10|issue=2|pages=222–235|doi=10.1080/13698010802145150|issn=1369-801X}}</ref><ref name=":0">{{Cite journal|last=AHMAD|first=AZIZ|author-link=Aziz Ahmad (writer)|date=1979|title=CONVERSIONS TO ISLAM IN THE VALLEY OF KASHMIR|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41927246|journal=Central Asiatic Journal|volume=23|issue=1/2|pages=3–18|issn=0008-9192|via=}}</ref><ref name=":2">{{Cite book|last=Hasan|first=Mohibbul|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EUlwmXjE9DQC|title=Kashmīr Under the Sultāns|date=2005|publisher=Aakar Books|year=|isbn=978-81-87879-49-7|location=|pages=59-95|language=en|author-link=Mohibbul Hasan}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|last=Slaje|first=Walter|title=Brahma's Curse : Facets of Political and Social Violence  in Premodern Kashmir|publisher=|year=2019|isbn=978-3-86977-199-1|series=Studia Indologica Universitatis Halensis - 13|location=|pages=5|chapter=A Glimpse into the Happy Valley’s Unhappy Past: Violence and Brahmin Warfare in Pre-Mughal Kashmir|chapter-url=http://resolver.sub.uni-goettingen.de/purl/?gr_elib-335}}</ref><ref name=":7">{{Cite book|last=Witzel|first=Michael|url=https://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/KashmiriBrahmins.pdf|title=The Brahmins of Kashmir|publisher=|year=|isbn=|location=|publication-date=September 1991|pages=}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|last=Accardi|first=Dean|title=Embedded Mystics: Writing Lal Ded and Nund Rishi into the Kashmiri Landscape|date=2017|url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/kashmir/embedded-mystics-writing-lal-ded-and-nund-rishi-into-the-kashmiri-landscape/735710A78E357C6E9FCC59A6AD96403F|work=Kashmir: History, Politics, Representation|pages=247–264|editor-last=Zutshi|editor-first=Chitralekha|place=Cambridge|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-1-107-18197-7|access-date=2021-02-03}}</ref> Music, dance, gambling, intoxicants etc were prohibited and the office of ''Shaikhu'l-Islam'' was established to enforce these rules.<ref name=":2" /> Brahmans were forcibly converted, Hindu and Buddhist shrines of worship were destroyed, Sanskrit literature were purged, ''[[Jizya]]'' was imposed for those who objected to the abolition of [[Varna (Hinduism)|hereditary ''varnas'']], and caste marks were prohibited.<ref name=":2" /><ref name=":0" /><ref name=":6">{{Cite book|last=Slaje|first=Walter|url=https://www.degruyter.com/view/title/543660|title=Encountering Buddhism and Islam in Premodern Central and South Asia|date=2019-08-19|publisher=De Gruyter|year=|isbn=978-3-11-063168-5|location=|pages=|language=en|chapter=Buddhism and Islam in Kashmir as Represented by Rājataraṅgiṇī Authors|doi=10.1515/9783110631685-006|chapter-url=https://www.degruyter.com/view/book/9783110631685/10.1515/9783110631685-006.xml}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=Slaje|first=Walter|url=https://www.academia.edu/42709412/Brahm%C4%81_s_Curse_Facets_of_Political_and_Social_Violence_in_Premodern_Kashmir|title=Brahma's Curse : Facets of Political and Social Violence in Premodern Kashmir|publisher=|year=2019|isbn=978-3-86977-199-1|series=Studia Indologica Universitatis Halensis - 13|location=|pages=30-40|chapter=What Does it Mean to Smash an Idol?  Iconoclasm in Medieval Kashmir as Reflected by Contemporaneous Sanskrit Sources}}</ref><ref name=":9">{{Cite book|last=Slaje|first=Walter|url=https://www.academia.edu/42710523/Kingship_in_Ka%C5%9Bm%C4%ABr_AD_1148_1459_From_the_Pen_of_Jonar%C4%81ja_Court_Pa%E1%B9%87%E1%B8%8Dit_to_Sul%E1%B9%AD%C4%81n_Zayn_al_%C4%80bid%C4%ABn_Critically_Edited_By_Walter_Slaje_With_an_Annotated_Translation_Indexes_and_Maps|title=Kingship in Kaśmīr (AD 1148‒1459) From the Pen of Jonarāja, Court Paṇḍit to Sulṭān Zayn al-‛Ābidīn|publisher=|year=2014|isbn=3869770880|series=Studia Indologica Universitatis Halensis - 7|location=Germany|pages=}}</ref>

Upon a literary reading of Rajatarangini, Sikandar's zeal behind the Islamisation of society is attributable to a Sufi preacher [[Mir Sayyid Ali Hamadani|Mir Muhammad Hamadani]] who arrived in the region from Huttalàn (present-day Tajikistan) and stayed for about 12 years during his term, advocating for the creation of a monolithic society based on Islam as the common denominator.<ref name=":10">{{Cite journal|last=Ogura|first=Satoshi|date=2015|title=INCOMPATIBLE OUTSIDERS OR BELIEVERS OF A DARŚANA?: REPRESENTATIONS OF MUSLIMS BY THREE BRAHMANS OF ŠĀHMĪRID KAŠMĪR|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/24754113|journal=Rivista degli studi orientali|volume=88|issue=1/4|pages=179–211|doi=10.2307/24754113|issn=0392-4866}}</ref><ref name=":0" /><ref name=":1" /> Sikandar's counsel, a neo-Brahman-convert, Suhabhatta (var. Saifuddin) is held to have played the guiding role in the execution of those exclusionary orthodox policies by "instigating" the Sultan.<ref name=":0" /><ref name=":6" /><ref name=":9" />{{Efn|Suhabhatta's daughter was also married off to Mir Hamadani.|name=|group=}} Baharistan-i-shahi as well as Tohfatu'l-Ahbab deemed Sikandar as the noblest ruler, who cleaned Kashmir of all heretics and infidels on Hamadani's influence.<ref name=":9" /><ref name=":11">{{Cite book|last=Zutshi|first=Chitralekha|title=Kashmir's Contested Pasts : Narratives, Sacred Geographies, and the Historical Imagination|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2014|isbn=9780199450671|location=|pages=|chapter=Garden of Solomon : Landscape and Sacred Pasts in Kashmir’s Sixteenth-Century Persian Narratives|chapter-url=https://oxford.universitypressscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199450671.001.0001/acprof-9780199450671-chapter-2}}</ref>

[[Chitralekha Zutshi]], [[Richard G. Salomon (academic)|Richard G. Salomon]] and others however reject that there were purely religious motives behind Sikandar's actions and calls for a nuanced contextual reading of Rajatarangini, in that it was commissioned by his successor, wishing to bring back the Brahminical elite into the royal fold and (simultaneously) strove to establish Sanskrit as an integral part of the vernacularizing world of the cosmopolitan Sultanate.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web|last=Zutshi|first=Chitralekha|title=This book claims to expose the myths behind Kashmir’s history. It exposes its own biases instead|url=https://scroll.in/article/855050/this-book-claims-to-expose-the-myths-behind-kashmirs-history-it-exposes-its-own-biases-instead|access-date=2021-02-01|website=Scroll.in|language=en-US}}</ref><ref name=":5">{{Cite thesis|last=Obrock|first=Luther James|title=Translation and History: The Development of a Kashmiri Textual Tradition from ca. 1000-1500|date=2015|degree=|publisher=UC Berkeley|url=https://escholarship.org/uc/item/68q7m3vv|doi=}}</ref><ref name=":8">{{Cite journal|last=Salomon|first=Richard|last2=Slaje|first2=Walter|date=2016|title=Review of Kingship in Kaśmīr (AD1148–1459). From the Pen of Jonarāja, Court Paṇḍit to Sulṭān Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn. Critically Edited by Walter Slaje with an Annotated Translation, Indexes and Maps. [Studia Indologica Universitatis Halensis 7], SlajeWalter|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26546259|journal=Indo-Iranian Journal|volume=59|issue=4|pages=393–401|doi=10.2307/26546259|issn=0019-7246}}</ref> Sikandar's policies were guided by realpolitik<ref name=":8" /> and, like with the previous Hindu rulers, essentially an attempt to secure political legitimacy by asserting state-power over Brahmans and gaining access to wealth controlled by Brahminical institutions.<ref name=":3" /> [[Walter Slaje]] disagrees, in part, given the differential rituals of destruction undertaken by Hindu and Muslim kings with the latter specifically rendering sites inoperable for long passage of time by massive pollution or outright conversion but he concludes that the fierce opposition of Hindus to Muslim rulers (including Sikandar) primarily stemmed from their aversion to the slow disintegration of [[Caste system in India|caste-society]] under Islamic influence.<ref name=":6" /><ref name=":1" />