{"id":3950,"date":"2018-12-02T17:30:15","date_gmt":"2018-12-02T12:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/?p=3950"},"modified":"2018-12-02T17:30:18","modified_gmt":"2018-12-02T12:00:18","slug":"masjid-hamams-grand-storytelling-platforms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/editors-take\/masjid-hamams-grand-storytelling-platforms\/","title":{"rendered":"Masjid Hamams Grand Storytelling Platforms"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/fb:like>

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Nostalgia <\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n

Of The Hamam<\/em> Stories <\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n

ZGM <\/u><\/strong><\/span><\/h1>\n

<\/h1>\n

Sitting long hours, after Zohar namaz<\/em>, during winter vacations on cozy hamam of the masjid in our Mohalla was one of best recess from studies for my mates and me. I don\u2019t know if the idea of hamam was introduced in Kashmir by the Turks in the eleventh century or the Moghuls popularized it in the sixteenth century. But, during our childhood, \u00a0\u00a0except the Jamia Masjid and some Khanaqahs, there was rarely a masjid that did not have a hamam. Some centuries-old masjids; great works of stone masonry used to be cozier than the newly built. Some older Masjid, where known for some Dervishes and Sufis, who had offered the whole night prayers in them. That, one of the greatest native sixteenth-century saint, Hazrat Sultan-ul-Arifeen Sheikh Hamza Makdoom, lovingly called by all children Makdoom Sahib had said many prayers during winters in one of stony masonry masjid\u2019s in a neighboring Mohalla, was a part of the popular narrative. My mates and me, out of deep love for the saint out of devotion couple of times said prayers in this small but warm masjid.<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n

Many elders of the Mohalla, some of them friends of my grandfather, after Peshin <\/em>(Zohar) namaz till Degar<\/em> (Asr) namaz during winters stayed back on the masjid hamams, to enjoy the warmth. Some stayed from Shom<\/em> (Maghrib) to\u00a0 \u00a0Khuftan (<\/em>Isha’a).\u00a0 \u00a0Sitting around them and listening to their tittle-tattle was entertaining. \u00a0Their many a conversation, connecting us to our immediate past, were rewarding. Some of the elders were chroniclers personified; they narrated the eyewitness happenings with\u00a0 David Attenborough\u2019s ease. \u00a0One, of them a knife grinder by profession, had mastered the art of conjuring fanciful stories, and through his storytelling, he not only kept us spellbound but also made us believe the unbelievable \u2014 many of his weird tales like the one: \u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n

\u2018that during the Second World War a German plane had hovered over their house and dropped a massive whale into their compound. To cut it into pieces they had hired wood choppers from Khanayar. And the same was distributed among the neighbors\u2019.\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0Every child awe-struck, sitting on the hammam heard his unbelievable stories with rapt attention as if true. Six decades after, I remember most of his fantastic stories.<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n

Some elders, who had been part of the protests against Jawaharlal Nehru\u2019s river procession enjoying the warmth of finely chiseled limestone hammam often turned nostalgic. Out of bravado, one elder Mama Saib a tailor by profession often said that at Maharaj Gunj he pelted loads of stones at Nehru \u2019s river procession; water level of the Jhelum was up by at least one inch. On the hamam, there would be hardly an elder who had not a story to tell about pelting stones on the cavalcade of boats, pulling down an arcade or tearing apart a flag while the Congress leaders procession passed through the Jhelum \u2013 from the sixth bridge to fourth bridge. \u00a0There were elders, who heard the towering South Asian Muslim leader, M.A. Jinnah \u00a0speaking to the cheering crowd\u00a0 of \u00a0a hundred thousand Muslims late at night in the Muslim Park, Nowhatta, (converted into the shanty market a decade and a half back)\u00a0 just a few hundred meters from the small masjid of our Mohalla. I remember, a coppersmith Abdul Rehman in his early fifties during our childhood, \u00a0often boasting of having carried Jinnah Sahib and Fatima Jinnah on his shoulder to the Mirwaiz Manzil. \u2018No sooner, Quaid-i-Azam and Fatima Jinnah\u2019s car reached near the Jamia Masjid on the Western Side\u2019 he would often say, \u2018it was lifted on shoulders by the enthusiastic supporters and for more than a furlong to the Mirwaiz Manzil- and he was one amongst them.\u2019<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n

<\/h4>\n

Our Mohalla was known mainly as a supporter of the Muslim Conference. Many in the Mohalla had very bitter memories when after 1948, they were subjected to discrimination and given green form (ration card). For monthly ration of salt and food grains, the National Conference had devised forms of three colors, red for ardent supporters, yellow for sympathizers and green for supporters of the Muslim Conference. Speaking badly about Molvi Syed, they would often say, it was the brainchild of Molvi Syed-in the allotment green card holders were the last priority.<\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n

Hamams, in our childhood, was a grand storytellin<\/strong>g platform.<\/span><\/h4>\n<\/fb:like><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

 
\nNostalgia
\nOf The Hamam Stories
\nZGM <\/p>\n

Sitting long hours, after Zohar namaz, during winter vacations on cozy hamam of the masjid in our Mohalla was one of best recess from studies for my mates and me. I don\u2019t know if the idea of hamam was introduced in Kashmir by the Turks in the eleventh century or the Moghuls popularized it in the sixteenth century. But, during our childhood, \u00a0\u00a0except the Jamia Masjid and some Khanaqahs, there was rarely a masjid that did not have a hamam. Some centuries-old masjids; great works of stone masonry used to be cozier than the newly built. Some older Masjid, where known for some Dervishes and Sufis, who had offered the whole night prayers in them. That, one of the greatest native sixteenth-century saint, Hazrat Sultan-ul-Arifeen Sheikh Hamza Makdoom, lovingly called by all children Makdoom Sahib had said many prayers during winters in one of …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3951,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editors-take"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3950"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3950"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3953,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3950\/revisions\/3953"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}