{"id":4106,"date":"2019-03-18T12:47:38","date_gmt":"2019-03-18T07:17:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/?p=4106"},"modified":"2019-03-18T12:47:46","modified_gmt":"2019-03-18T07:17:46","slug":"the-mirwaiz-institution-its-importance-in-kashmir-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/point-of-view\/kashmir-talk\/the-mirwaiz-institution-its-importance-in-kashmir-story\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mirwaiz Institution – Its importance In Kashmir Story"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/fb:like>\n

The   Mirwaiz\nInstitution <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s Importance for Kashmir <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Z. G. Muhammad <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Author <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Like Chris, a French writer and filmmaker, \u201cWhat I’m passionate about is History; politics interests me only insofar as it is the cross-section of History in the present.\u201d Looking, at the contemporary scenario at our own place, I was thinking how past three centuries have shaped our contemporary narrative, in this column I may not be able to write how this narrative is potent enough to demolish the \u2018dominant discourse\u2019, nonetheless it would be of interest for students of\u00a0 contemporary history to know how events during 19th and 20th<\/sup> centuries dovetailed and shaped the modern Kashmir story. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kashmir fell\nto the Durrani Empire in 1752, after a commander sent by Ahmad Shah Abdali\ndefeated the Moghuls. For sixty-seven\nyears, the governors posted by Durranis\nruled Kashmir through intimidation and terror and exacted taxes from people\nirrespective of their religion and social status through the meanest methods imaginable.\nNevertheless, they did not interfere with the faith\nof people and also did not impose any taboos on religious practices.\nIrrespective of their belief Kashmiris nursed deep-seated\nresentment against the Durranis and their proxies in Kashmir their cruel tax\nsystem and misgovernment. Nevertheless it\ndid not find an organized expression or a revolt. Five years after Sardar\nMohammad Azim Khan Governor of Kashmir had repelled the Maharaja Ranjit Singh and pursued him up to Kotli pass in\nMirpur the soldiers of Ranjit Singh entered into Kashmir. On their entering\ninto Srinagar, they started writing the \u2018story of lawlessness\u2019   by\nattacking religious freedom of the ninety-seven\nper cent population of the land of saints.\nDuring twenty-seven years of the Sikh\nrule till the death of Ranjit Singh, religious freedom largely remained\nsuspended for the Muslims; it was to an\nextent restored after Sheikh Mohi-u-Din was appointed Governor of Kashmir by\nthe rulers in Punjab. The resentment was so deep that even Dervishes, detached\nfrom worldly comforts had so much hatred against the brutal rulers that they did\nnot grant even interview to the Governors of Ranjit Singh. Ranjit Singh had\nappointed \u2018twenty thousand musketeers as the army of occupation\u2019 to prevent any\nuprising. Nonetheless, various forces on\nthe peripheries of the Valley Khakha and Bomba tribes started a movement\nagainst the occupation of Kashmir by the Sikh Ruler. In their fight against the\nSingh\u2019s troop, the Khakhas and the Bomba tribes that inhabited areas beyond\nRampur in Baramulla district were joined by neighbouring warrior Pathan tribes,\nAfridis, Waziris, Gilzaris, Masudi’s, and Yusuf Zai\u2019s.\u2019 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For\nsecuring their geostrategic interests,\nthe British passed on Kashmir in 1846 to Gulab Singh and created Jammu and\nKashmir State, outside British India. Many historians including Dr Abdul Ahad have documented that Kashmiris in\nunison had fiercely opposed the occupation of their land and rose fought the\nDogra soldiers on their entering into Kashmir, because\nof large contingents of British army coming to their support, Gulab\nSingh\u2019s soldiers gate-crashed into the Valley. Mridu Rai, the author of Hindu Rulers, Muslim Subjects, a\nmagnum opus on the Dogra Rule in Kashmir,\nhas quite eloquently detailed how after 1857 the British vassal   zealously\nannounced themselves as Hindu Rulers and established Kashmir as a \u201cHindu State\u201d\nand marginalized the overwhelming majority. \u2018Hindu-ness was made the basis of the rule.\u2019  The brutal and bigotry tax system introduced\nis the worst ever tax system in the annals of the Elysian land. The flesh trade\nwas prompted as an industry, and it was taxes. Huge taxes were exacted from\nMuslims even for the Dharmarth and construction of the temples, and historical masjids of excellent heritage value were converted into\narsenals and granaries. The Dogra continued many diktats on religious freedom\nimposed by the Sikh and introduced harsher laws for punishing the Muslims.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The resentment\nin Muslims against the Dogra rule  first manifested\nin 1865  against increasing brutal  taxes \u2018frequently extorted by using army\u2019 was  also against explicit   threats to their faith and religious beliefs.  In this bizarre scene, some Hindu religious organizations from neighbouring states\nestablished their branches in both Jammu and Kashmir besides proselytizing\nstarted attacking other faiths and converting people from other religions to\ntheir faith. The Dogra rulers besides Pandits had exempted some Muslim cleric\nfrom revenue assessment and other taxes the state levied on Muslims-\ncultivators and artisans. Furthermore, for their services they received\nrevenue-free land grants from rulers in return for services rendered by them. In\nthis dark and threatening scenario a\nhumble family of clerics that had migrated from a small town in South Kashmir\ninto Srinagar city. And   over a period of time graduated into an\ninstitution of social reforms, preaching of Islam, and working for the\nempowerment of Muslims- this institution came to be known as the Mirwaiz\ninstitution. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sadi\nBaiyu or Molvi Sadiq-u-Allah Trali as the family chroniclers prefer to call\nhim arrived into the city in the late\nseventeenth or early eighteenth century; it\nwas his son Molvi Abdul Salam who made Srinagar as his permanent abode and\nstarted delivering sermons in local Masjids. But it was a couple of generation later Hafiz Rasool Shah,\npopularly called  Lassa Baba  (1783 A.D- 1845 A.D),    respected  for his scholarship,   exposition of the Holy Quran and Hadith, besides\ncommitting himself to religious preaching had earned a place of distinction for\nwaging war against un-Islamic practices,\nsuperstitions, social evils and promoting brotherhood in people.  Most of the chronicles recognize him as the founder of the   Mirwaiz\ninstitution in Kashmir. He was first in the Mirwaiz family to deliver sermons\nfrom the Jamia Masjid. For seventeen years during the Durrani rule, he gave sermons\nfrom the Pulpit of the Jamia Masjid, for his eloquence he attracted huge\ngatherings. Unlike many other preachers of the times that exhibited their\nscholarship lacing their religious discourse with Persian he chose chaste\nKashmiri as his medium to reach to general masses- thus created an impact on\nthe devotes that thronged the Jamia Masjid. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the Institution graduated to another\nmissionary level of empowering the ninety per cent disempowered Muslim\npopulation of Kashmir.   Mirwaiz Rasool Shah succeeded his father Molvi\nMohammad Yahya after his death in 1890. For his extraordinary role for the development\nof Kashmir society in general and Muslims, in particular, Mirwaiz Rasool Shah\u2019s\nname will be written in golden letters in the history of Kashmir. Through his\neloquent discourses, he fought age-old social evils in the society and\nrevolutionized the thinking of the subjugated people. Moreover, with the establishment\nof the Anjuman Nusrat-e-Islam, the first association of the Muslims of Kashmir\nand founding Islamia High School he laid first stone towards empowering the\nMuslims disempowered to submission for over a century. In 1916, the Anjuman,\njoined by the first batches of alumni from Islamia High School after getting\nhigher education emerged as the first rights organization for representing to\nthe Viceroy of India for giving equal rights to Muslims for getting modern higher\neducation- that was denied to them. The move had prompted the appointment of Sharp Committee to look into\nbackwardness of Muslims in education. This report subsequently had a pioneering\nrole to play  in taking Muslim children\nfrom darkness to light. The founding of the Anjuman inspired the birth of many other socio-religious\norganizations such as Anjuman-I-Hamdard, Srinagar and\nAnjuman-i-Thaffuz-i-Namaz. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The role\nof the Institution of Mirwaiz was not limited only to socio-religious reforms, but it had its role for establishing democratic\ninstitutions and safeguarding democratic rights.   Memorandum presented to Lord Reading in 1924\non his arrival in Kashmir by people of Kashmir demanding the restoration of democratic rights was signed by\nMirwaiz Ahmadullah and other elite- this 17 point memorandum emerged as the\nbible for the people to struggle for ending the feudal autocratic rule in the\nstate- that found the boldest manifestation\non 13 July 1931, with Dogra soldiers piercing chest twenty-three persons outside the Srinagar Central Jail. But for the\nactive support and lead of Mirwaiz Yousuf Shah, an\nalumnus of  Darul Uloom Deoband, who had succeeded\nMolvi Ahmadullah as Mirwaiz   the 1931 Freedom Movement would not have picked up so fast and with such zest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unmindful\nof the impediments even after 1947, and exile of Mirwaiz Yousf Shah to Pakistan the institution of\nMirwaiz, with Molvi Attiquallah as the head   has\npursued its mission of spreading education and standing for the rights of people\n\u2013 and immensely contributed to the Kashmir Society.  <\/p>\n<\/fb:like><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The   Mirwaiz
\nInstitution <\/p>\n

It\u2019s Importance for Kashmir <\/p>\n

By<\/p>\n

Z. G. Muhammad <\/p>\n

Author <\/p>\n

Like Chris, a French writer and filmmaker, \u201cWhat I’m passionate about is History; politics interests me only insofar as it is the cross-section of History in the present.\u201d Looking, at the contemporary scenario at our own place, I was thinking how past three centuries have shaped our contemporary narrative, in this column I may not be able to write how this narrative is potent enough to demolish the \u2018dominant discourse\u2019, nonetheless it would be of interest for students of\u00a0 contemporary history to know how events during 19th and 20th centuries dovetailed and shaped the modern Kashmir story. <\/p>\n

Kashmir fell
\nto the Durrani Empire in 1752, after a commander sent by Ahmad Shah Abdali
\ndefeated the Moghuls. For sixty-seven
\nyears, the governors posted by Durranis
\nruled Kashmir through intimidation and terror and exacted taxes from people
\nirrespective of their religion and social status through …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":905,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[370,371,372,46],"class_list":["post-4106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kashmir-talk","tag-mirwaiz-kashmir","tag-mirwaiz-umar-farooq","tag-punchline-greaterkashmir-z-g-muhammad","tag-zahid-g-muhammad"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4106"}],"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=4106"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4107,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4106\/revisions\/4107"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}