By Dr. Abdul Ahad
Islam brought Kashmir face to face with the blessings and benefits of a well-developed agrarian and industrial civilization and, thereby, enabled her to accomplish a remarkable and admirable civilizing coalescence and cultural synchronization between the indigenous wisdom and the spiritual and socio-economic knowledge of Islam. Bejewelling it with spaciously planned and sociologically viable and economically realistic and practicable ingredients, refinements and potentialities, the socio-economic engineering of Islam made the Kashmiri personality fit to be seen in both its Kashmiri and Islamic dimensions.
It is pertinent to mention that Islam got into Kashmir, not directly from the midst of Arab deserts, the place of its birth, but via Central Asia, where it had come into contact with an overwhelmingly vibrant and symphonic culture, art, literature and architecture; absorbing freely and naturally, but without diluting its fundamentals, the aroma of agrarian civilization’. While living harmoniously with the rich mosaic of meadows, woods, fertile lands and rivers of this alpine region for quite some time, Islam had, thus, brought together two streams of civilizations to create a strong and coherent mutual bond and confluence of ideas and institutions; an amazing cultural coalescence which descended upon Kashmir to expose it to a lovely row of the great spiritual wisdom of islam on the one hand and a torrential showers of agrarian culture on the other.
But unlike the earlier civilizations-the political patriarchs, especially Nila Naga, Miharakula, Ashoka and Kanishka, extended state patronage to Hinduism and Buddhism for their propagation Islam did not enjoy any Imperial support or power to embark on Kashmir wide diffusion yet still succeeded to reach the pinnacle of fame and popularity. It was proclaimed a religion of the masses amid loud shrieks of public excitement. And, thus, to an enthusiastic and tumultuous welcome, the crescent was supplanted as a socio-religious leader of the Kashmiris not to elbow, Trishul, Lingam, Yoni or Bikshus out of the way but to ensure the welfare of the most vulnerable sections of society and encourage the development of the sentiments of brotherhood and co-existence so that the ossified socio-economic system and the evils of the past, more particularly the racial hierarchy, social dichotomy, ecclesiastical tyranny, economic anarchy, peasant unrest and land grabbing did not return to pollute the atmosphere anymore. Even the political and intellectual elite could not escape its deep impact or eschew the gradual adoption of practices and fashions in vague in Central Asia. King Vajraditya (725-732) and King Harsha (1089-1101) were conspicuous in this regard. And among the intellectuals, the most illustrious Kashmiri writer of the period, namely Ksemendra, was the foremost to make stupendous use of the Persian phraseology and the proverbial Central Asian wisdom to correlate these with the indigenous vernacular etiquette, idioms and literature of the times to make these more vivacious and enduring; clearing the way, thus, for a renaissance to take place in the near future.
This was amply indicative of a dramatic and sudden break in Kashmir history; a qualitative and comprehensive break from nebulous concepts of antiquity and antiquated conditions. It facilitated its smooth transition from ancient to medieval period; marking, thus, the beginning of a new era of agrarian prosperity, irrigational network, industrial growth and commercial morality. Fairly keeping in with the principles of Alqasib-i-Habibullah and with what is known as halhall in Islamic terminology this morality encouraged:
•the rise of peasantry, wbich was till then suppressed by ferocious Damaras, a
class of land grabbers
•the flowering of arts and crafts through the establishment of Karkhanas;
•the institutionalization of marketing system;
•the development of merchant’s capilal and;
•the expansion of import and export trade
The prime movers of this extraordinary change were, undoubtedly, the common native people themselves. But among the people only those come in the full glare and under more focus of history who successfully groped their way long the most difficult corridors and down the tormenting cliffs and across the length and breadth of the Valley to lead a tranquil life amidst its serene environs far away from the serpentine course of the Timurid persecution and implacable hatred permeating the entire Central Asia on account of ideological differentiation of its society; and, subsequently, engaged themselves wholeheartedly in the service of Islam and in the process sacrificed everything to accomplish the noblest job of shaping the destiny of the Kashmiris. Among these the most distinguished are Bulbul Shah, Bilal Shah, Jalal-ud-Din, and, above all Mir Ali Hamdani whose vast contribution not only far out weight those of the great monarchs of medieval times but also continue to outstrip the ongoing saga of sagacious and people friendly deeds due to its inherent perennial and potential benefits.
Dr. Abdul Ahad is a well-known historian of Kashmir. He presents a perspective on the Kashmir issue and talks about Kashmir’s history and individuality and personality.
