Ak rafiz tah beyih gamah rafiz.(A Shi'a that too a village Shi'a)

Sham S. Misri

Many Shias live in the valley of Kashmir. Some live in villages. In the city they live mostly at Zadibal, a few miles to the north of Srinagar, while, others live at Hassanabad, where there is a grand mosque for Shias. It has been seen that some bitterness of feeling exists between the Sunis and the Shias. They are the rival Sects of Muslims. They occasionally manifest it in open fights ending in loss of life and great destruction of property. In 1874 the Maharajah's troops were obliged to be called out to control the rioters.
 During the Pathan rule in the valley the Shias were forbidden to celebrate the Muharram. One incident took place during the Durrani Empire (1753-1819 A.D.). The Shias once performed a sacred feast. By chance a boy happened to pass by that way and started showing gestures there; It was found that it was a Suni boy. The mob caught hold of the boy and compelled him to eat salt; the boy was not given any water to drink. Somehow the boy died. The mob said let the boy perish.
When Abdulla Khan, who had just conquered and been the governor of Kashmir, heard of this, he was very much enraged. He immediately gave the order for the collecting of all the Shias in Srinagar, that their noses might be pierced, and one line of String run through the whole of them, and that, thus fastened together, they might be conducted through the principal thoroughfares of the city. Nothing daunted, however, they very soon again tried to celebrate their sacred festival, and notably in the time of the Sikh governor Bama Singh (1830 A.D.) there was a great Suni living in Kashmir in the fifteenth century, whose name was Muqaddam Sahib.  He had a large number of followers. One amongst them was  Shams-ud-din, a Persian Shi'a, who managed to conceal his religions views. He made many converts to the Shi'a faith, and in consequence is much respected by the Shias. Many Shi'a think that he was perfectly justified in concealing his faith to save himself from religious persecution. It appears that during the year or so of Bama Singh's governorship in Kashmir, the Shias when celebrating the Muharram purposely spat in the direction of the Muqaddam Sahib's tomb, and this so enraged the Sunis that they fell upon them and slew some of them, besides doing much damage to their Property. After that the Persian traders have kept at a distance from Kashmir for a long time.