A MUSLIM MISSIONARY in MEDIAEVAL KASHMIR a MUSLIM MISSIONARY in MEDIAEVAL KASHMIR (Being the English Translation of Tohfatuíl-Ahbab)
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A MUSLIM MISSIONARY IN MEDIAEVAL KASHMIR A MUSLIM MISSIONARY IN MEDIAEVAL KASHMIR (Being the English translation of Tohfatuíl-Ahbab) by Muhammad Ali Kashmiri English translation and annotations by KASHINATH PANDIT ASIAN-EURASIAN HUMAN RIGHTS FORUM New Delhi iv / ATRAVAILS MUSLIM MISSIONARYOF A KASHMIR IN FREEDOMMEDIAEVAL FIGHTER KASHMIR This book is the English translation of a Farsi manuscript, Tohfatuíl- Ahbab, persumably written in AD 1640. A transcript copy of the manuscript exists in the Research and Publications Department of Jammu and Kashmir State under Accession Number 551. © KASHINATH PANDIT First Published 2009 Price: Rs. 400.00 Published by Eurasian Human Rights Forum, E-241, Sarita Vihar, New Delhi ñ 110 076 (INDIA). website: www.world-citizenship.org Printed at Salasar Imaging Systems, C-7/5, Lawrence Road Indl. Area, Delhi ñ 110 035. INTRODUCTIONCONTENTS //v v For the historians writing on Mediaeval India vi / ATRAVAILS MUSLIM MISSIONARYOF A KASHMIR IN FREEDOMMEDIAEVAL FIGHTER KASHMIR INTRODUCTIONCONTENTS / vii Contents Acknowledgement ix Introduction xi-lxxx Chapter I. Araki and Nurbakhshi Preceptors 1-65 Chapter II. Arakiís first Visit to Kashmir: His Miracles, Kashmiris, and Arakiís Return 66-148 Chapter III. Arakiís Return to Iran 149-192 Part I: Acrimony of the people of Khurasan towards Shah Qasim 149-161 Part II: In service of Shah Qasim 161-178 Part III: To Kashmir 178-192 Chapter IV. Mission in Kashmir 193-278 Part I: Stewardship of Hamadaniyyeh hospice 193-209 Part II: Arakiís mission of destroying idols and temples of infidels 209-278 Chapter V. Arakiís Munificence 279-283 Index 284-291 viii / ATRAVAILS MUSLIM MISSIONARYOF A KASHMIR IN FREEDOMMEDIAEVAL FIGHTER KASHMIR INTRODUCTIONCONTENTS /ix/ ix 1 Acknowledgement I am thankful to Dr. Tejnath Dhar, a dear friend and colleague at the University of Kashmir, who took pains to go through the draft and suggested many improvements and modifications in the translated text. I am also thankful to a large number of friends and well-wishers who prompted me to undertake this academic project in the hope that it will be an addition to the corpus of historical knowledge about mediaeval Kashmir. I did most of my work in the rich library of Iran Cultural House in New Delhi. I am thankful to its functionaries and the Cultural Counsellor of the Islamic Republic of Iran in India for the facilities made available to scholars and researchers at this library. Finally, I wish to to pay homage to my late teacher and guide, Dr. Zabihullah Safa, former Professor at the Faculty of Letters, University of Teheran, Iran, whose profound scholarship, sharp independent critical judgement and a high standard of scholarly research have been a constant source of inspiration for my academic pursuits. Kashinath Pandit x/ATRAVAILS MUSLIM MISSIONARYOF A KASHMIR IN FREEDOMMEDIAEVAL FIGHTER KASHMIR INTRODUCTIONCONTENTS /xi/ xi 1 Introduction This is the English translation of a Farsi work Tohfatuíl- Ahbab, the biography of Shamsuíd-Din Muhammad Araki, an Iranian Shiëa Muslim missionary of Nurbakhshiyyeh order who is reported to have visited Kashmir for the first time in A.H. 882/A.D.14781. He was born in Solghan in Northern Iran in the year A.H 828/A.D. 1424. Some hagiographers have tried to trace his descent from the line of Imam Musa Kazim. We do not have convincing information about the life and works of the author of Shamsuíd-Din Arakiís biography, namely Tohfatuíl-Ahbab except that he calls himself Muhammad ëAli Kashmiri. He often accompanied his father on their visit to Shamsuíd-Din Araki in his hospice at Zadibal,Srinagar. It appears from the biography that he was an eye witness to many events connected with Arakiís mission in Kashmir. Like his father Mulla Khaleelullah, he was a staunch follower of Shiëa Nurbakhshiyyeh faith brought to Kashmir by Araki. The colophon of J&K Researcah Library manuscript of Tohfatuíl-Ahbab bears the year of transcription as A.H. 1052/A.D. 1642. Manuscripts of the work are preserved in J&K State Research Library, and in the private collection of Agha Sahib of Budgam, Srinagar. Both are defective because the first and the last chapter, out of a total of four chapters of the work, are completely missing. The MS in the British Museum, too, suffers from the same defect. However, a manuscript copy 1Baharistan-i-Shahi, ed. Akbar Haideri, p. 38. xii / ATRAVAILS MUSLIM MISSIONARYOF A KASHMIR IN FREEDOMMEDIAEVAL FIGHTER KASHMIR containing all the four chapters is preserved in the private collection of Barat libraray in Barqchhan Khaplu, Baltistan, a part of the original Sate of Jammu and Kashmir but at present under the control of Pakistan. Muhammad Reza Akhund Zadeh of Khaplu brought out its Urdu translation (Tohfeh-e Kashmir) from Lahore in 1997. Shamsuíd-Din Araki had traveled from Srinagar to Askardu propagating Nurbakhshiyyeh faith, first in the valley of Kashmir and then in what is now called Gilgit and Baltistan. His mission in the southern foothills of Karakorum Range of the Himalayas was more than successful, and he left behind many people who have, ever since, stuck to his faith and Sufi order. Therefore, preservation of a genuine and unabridged manuscript copy of Arakiís biography by a descendent of a family of his faith in distant Askardu seems understandable. In a personal letter that I received from the owner of the manuscript while I was in correspondence with him, he said that a scholar from an American University had visited him sometime back and made a photo copy of the manuscript. I found that this scholar was Shahzad Bashir, Assistant Professor of Religion at Carleton College in Minnesota. I contacted him and came to know that he had produced a work on Nurbakhshiyyeh sect of Sufis, under the title Messianic Hopes and Mystical Vision. In the introduction to his work, Shahzad says that he drew most of the material for his monograph from the biography of Shamsuíd-Din Araki titled Tohfatuíl-Ahbab. On close examination of his work, I found that he had ignored Chapter IV altogether though he had made for himself a copy of the original unabridged text. I corresponded with him briefly when I took up the translation work in hand. Though he agreed to send me a copy of the two usually missing chapters of the manuscripts, it never materialized. I hope he has used the contents of Tohfatuíl- Ahbab very faithfully in view of its importance for a serious student of mediaeval Kashmir history. INTRODUCTIONCONTENTS / xiii In the meanwhile, one Ghulam Rasul Jan, a teacher at the Persian Department of Kashmir University, published in 2008 annotated Urdu translation together with the Persian text of one part of the work. In the introduction of this Urdu translation (Volume I) he says that he visited Khaplu (in Askardu) and stayed as a guest of Muhammad Reza Akhund from whom he obtained a photo copy of the manuscript. He confirms that the manuscript is complete and in a good shape. Ghulam Rasool Jan has devoted one full chapter of his work to the life, descent and environs of Muhammad Ali Kashmiri, the biographer of Shamsuíd-Din Aaki. Mulla Akhund himself translated the original Persian text into Urdu, which has been published in Pakistan under the title Tohfeh-e Kashmir in 1997. I obtained a copy of this translation also, and on comparing it with the original text, I found that the Urdu translation leaves out almost all ornate portions of the text. As a Persian prose work, its style is boring and redundant, which no genuine scholar of Farsi literature will approve. That could be a reason among many others why Iranian historians and hagiographers (Tadhkirah navisan) have overlooked it. Nevertheless, its value as an important history of mediaeval Kashmir dealing with an eventful phase of her social history has not to be underestimated, particularly when we find that the author has tried to be very honest in recording the events connected with the person whose biography he is writing and most of the events to which he was an eye witness. It is this historical value that prompted me to take up its translation into English. The theme of the work is technical in a sense. This necessitated exhaustive footnoting of the text in order to facilitate readers to overcome discrepancy in their historical knowledge of Iranian Sufism. This was a stupendous task and asked for immense labour, research and concentration that took six long years to bring it to completion. I hope researchers in the field of social history of Iran as well as those in the history of Muslim missionaries in Kashmir will xiv / ATRAVAILS MUSLIM MISSIONARYOF A KASHMIR IN FREEDOMMEDIAEVAL FIGHTER KASHMIR find it useful and instructive. Maybe more well-meaning researchers will think of re-interpreting aspects of mediaeval history of Kashmir. Before introducing some aspects of mediaeval Kashmir, which the book unravels, we need to know Shamsuíd-Din Araki, the Shiëa Muslim missionary from Iran whose life and works have become the theme of this biography. We also need to know some of more important personalities relevant to our study of the book. Kashmiri historians writing in Farsi have mentioned his name as ëIraqi (with Arabic alphabet ain) and not Araki (with Arabic alif and kaf farsi). But I take recourse to Iranís geography and topography, and call him Araki and not ëIraqi. ëIraq is a country to the west of Iran whose people speak Arabic. The region that straddles Irans western border with Iraq has been traditionally called ëIraq-e-ëAjam, the latter part being the name given by the Arabs to Iran. The region is called ëIraq-e-ëAjam because the people in the region are bi- lingual and bi-cultural.