Kashmir (Kashmiri: کٔشِیر / कॅशीर; Hindi: कश्मीर, भारत; Urdu: کشمیر‎; Shina: کشمیر), archaically spelled Cashmere, is in the northwestern region of South Asia. Until the mid-19th century, the term Kashmir geographically denoted only the valley between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal mountain range.

Quotes about Kashmir

  • Oh, pilot of the storm who leaves no trace
    Like thoughts inside a dream.
    Heed the path that led me to that place,
    Yellow desert stream.
    My Shangri-La beneath the summer moon
    Will return again.
    Sure as the dust that floats b'hind you
    When movin' through Kashmir.
    • Led Zeppelin: Kashmir
  • With the Vedas, the six appendices, with the Pada and Krama (texts), with Vedånta and Siddhånta, logic and grammar, Purana recitation, with (Tantric) Mantras and the six traditional sects ... with its masses of Puranic, Vedic (śruti) and logic disciplines (tarkaśåstra), and, moreover, marked by Agnihotrins, with Brahmins devoted to meditation, asceticism, recitation and so on, and zealeaously engaged with ablutions, worship, and the like, ... the land of Kashmir is the best.
    • Rajataranginī of Jonaraja, B 747
  • If there is a paradise on earth,
    It is this, it is this, it is this
  • Kashmir's conversion to Islam on a large scale also dates from the beginning of the fifteenth century....However, it was during the reign of Sikandar Butshikan (1394-1417), that the wind of Muslim proselytization blew the strongest. He invited from Persia, Arabia and Mesopotamia learned men of his own faith; his bigotry prompted him to destroy all the most famous temples in Kashmir - Martand, Vishya, Isna, Chakrabhrit, Tripeshwar, etc. Sikandar offered the Kashmiris the choice between Islam and death. Some Kashmiri Brahmans committed suicide, many left the land, many others embraced Islam, and a few began to live under Taqiya, that is, they professed Islam only outwardly. It is said that the fierce intolerance of Sikandar had left in Kashmir no more than eleven families of Brahmans. ...By the time of Akbar’s annexation of Kashmir (C.E. 1586) the valley had turned mainly Mohammadan. When Father Xavier and Brother Benedict went to Kashmir with Akbar this is what they learnt: “In antiquity this land was inhabited by the Moors, possibly a reference to Timur (contemporary of Sikandar the Iconoclast), and since then the majority of the people accept Islam.” When Kashmir was under Muslim rule for 500 years (1319-1819) Hindus were constantly tortured and forcibly converted.
    • K. S. Lal (1993). Indian Muslims: Who are they. New Delhi: Voice of India.
  • Kashmir has been an eye-opener for the Hindus if one was needed. In the first part of 1990, more than two lakhs of Hindus, practically the entire non-Muslim population, were driven out from the Valley. Refugee Arvind Dhar testifies: "The aggression has been entirely one-sided. All central government employees (generally Hindus) were asked to leave their jobs, and those who did not were placed on a hit-list. One newspaper (Al-Safab) had a headline in March asking all Hindus to vacate within 48 hours of face bullets".
    • Arvind Dhar Times of India, 6/1/1991. Quoted from Elst, Koenraad (1991). Ayodhya and after: Issues before Hindu society.
  • The Kashmiri militants, Bushan Bazaz, Syed Shahabuddin, the Nehruvian defenders of Article 370, they are all, each in his own way, objectively part of the strategy of the anti-Hindu forces on the Kashmir front. The Kashmir Samiti has produced a report titled Riots in Kashmir, listing 85 temples destroyed in the valley, and claiming that 550 Hindus had been killed (630 with security men included; official figure 495) in the Islamic purification campaign in 1990. ... All the talk of Kashmiriyat as a bond between Hindus and Muslims have proven to be just wind as soon as the call for a separate Dar-ul-Islam was spread.
    • Quoted from Elst, Koenraad (1991). Ayodhya and after: Issues before Hindu society, citing V.K.Malhotra's speech in the Lok Sabha, reported in Organizer,6/1/1991.
  • In the Kashmir Valley (1014 C.E.), according to Utbi, the captives taken “were so plentiful that they became very cheap…”
    • Utbi about slaves in Kashmir, quoted in Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 10
  • When Jahangir learnt that the Hindus and Muslims intermarried freely in Kashmir, “and both give and take girls, (he ordered that) taking them is good but giving them, God forbid”. And any violation of this order was to be visited with capital punishment.
    • Tuzuk-i-Jahangiri, II, p. 181. quoted from Lal, K. S. (1992). The legacy of Muslim rule in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 8
  • “On the imprisonment of Mahomed, Futteh Khan, assuming the reigns of government, and being formally crowned, was acknowledged King of Kashmeer in the year 902; and appointed Suffy and Runga Ray, the two officers who had lately made their escape, his ministers. About this time one Meer Shumsood-Deen, disciple of Shah Kasim Anwur, the son of Syud Mahomed Noorbukhsh arrived in Kashmeer from Irak. Futteh Khan made over to this holy personage all the confiscated lands which had lately fallen to the crown; and his disciples went forth destroying the temples of the idolaters, in which they met with the support of the government, so that no one dared to oppose them. In a short time many of the Kashmeeries, particularly those of the tribe of Chuk, became converts to the Noorbukhsh tenets. The persuasion of this sect was connected with that of the Sheeas; but many proselytes, who had not tasted of the cup of grace, after the death of Meer Shumsood-Deen, reverted to their idols…”
    • Tãrîkh-i-Firishta by Firishta. Sultãn Fath Shãh of Kashmir (AD 1485-1499 and 1505-1516) Kashmir
  • “Fath Shãh ascended the throne in AH 894 (AD 1488-89)… In those days Mîr Shams, a disciple of Shãh Qãsim Anwar, reached Kashmir and people became his devotees. All endowments, imlãk, places of worship and temples were entrusted to his disciples. His Sûfîs used to destroy temples and no one could stop them…”
    • Tabqãt-i-Akharî by Nizamuddin Ahmad. Sultãn Fath Shãh of Kashmir (AD 1489-1499 and 1505-1516) Kashmir


Tarikh-i-Kashmir

  • “Malik Musa ascended the throne in AH 907 (AD 1501). During his reign, he devoted himself to the obliteration of the infidels and busied himself with the spread of the religion of the prophet. He made desolate most of the temples where the infidels had practised idolatry. Wherever there was a temple, he destroyed it and built a mosque in its place… None of the Sultans of Kashmir after Sultan Sikandar… ever made such an effort for the spread of the Islamic faith as did Malik Musa Chadurah, and for this auspicious reason he received the title of the ‘Idol Breaker’.”296
    • About Malik Musa of Kashmir, Tarikh-Kashmir, edited and translated into English by Razia Bano, Delhi, 1991, p. 61.
  • “…Baba Ûchah Ganai went for circumambulation of the two harms (Mecca and Medina)… in search of the perfect guide (Pir-i-Kamil). He prayed to God (to help) him when he heard a voice from the unknown that the ‘perfect guide’ was in Kashmir himself… Hazrat Shaikh, Baba Ûchah Ganai… returned to Kashmir… All of a sudden his eyes fell upon a place of worship, the temples of the Hindus. He smiled; when the devotees asked the cause of (his smile) he replied that the destruction and demolition of these places of worship and the destruction of the idols will take place at the hand of the high horn Shaikh Shams-ud-Din Irraqi. He will soon be coming from Iraq and shall turn the temples completely desolate, and most of the misled people will accept the path of guidance and Islam… So as was ordained Shaikh Shams-ud-Din reached Kashmir. He began destroying the places of worship and the temples of the Hindus and made an effort to achieve the objectives.”297
    • About Sufi Mir Shamsu’d-Din Iraqi in Kashmir , Tarikh-Kashmir, edited and translated into English by Razia Bano, Delhi, 1991, p. 102-3

Kashmir in 1947-48

  • The Pashtun tribesmen under Khurshid Anwar`s command halted after reaching Baramula, only an hour`s bus ride from Srinagar and refused to go any further. Here they embarked on a three-day binge, looting houses assaulting Muslims and Hindus alike, raping men and women and stealing money from Kashmir treasury. The local cinema was transformed into a rape centre. A group of Pashtuns invaded St Joseph's convent, where they raped and killed four nuns, including the mother superior.
    • The Clash of Fundamentalisms' by Tariq Ali
  • The numer of women who have been kidnapped and raped makes my heart bleed.The wild forces thus let loose on the State are marching on with the aim of capturing Srinagar, the summer Capital of my Government, as first step to over-running the whole State [of Kashmir].
    • The Maharaja Hari Singh wrote this in his letter to Mountbatten, while Kashmir was invaded by Mujahedins: Maharaja Hari Singh's Letter to Mountbatten. Letter Dated October 26, 1947 From Hari Singh, The Maharaja Of Jammu & Kashmir to Lord Mountbatten, Governor General of India.
  • The raiders came to our land, massacred thousands of people -- mostly Hindus and Sikhs, but Muslims too -- abducted thousands of girls, Hindu, Sikhs and Muslims alike, looted our property and almost reached the gates of our summer capital, Srinagar.
    • Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah's speech in the UN Security Council Sheikh Mohammed Abdullah's speech in the UN Security Council Meeting No.241 held on 5 February 1948
  • Everything was peaceful until the afternoon of 27 October, when the tribesmen suddenly appeared in their lorries. They took control of the town and an orgy started. Anyone who attempted to argue with them or showed any signs of resistance was shot immediately. This resulted in those residing in the Southern portion of the town fleeing to the Northern part which lay across the Jhelum River. Almost throughout the night there were signs of arson and bursts of firing. The next day, 28 October, groups of tribesmen entered the Northern part of the town and abducted women whom they dragged back to the Southern part. They warned the people to stay in their houses or face death if they stirred out.
    • Capt PR Dewan, from the book `Slender was the Thread` by L.P. Sen
  • In Hindutva writings (e.g. in Jeevan Kulkarni’s Writ Petition no. 587 of 1989), there is frequent reference to a telegram allegedly sent by the Pakistani raiders to their military headquarters during the invasion of Kashmir in 1948: “All women raped, all Sikhs killed.”
    • Koenraad Elst (2002). Who is a Hindu?: Hindu revivalist views of Animism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and other offshoots of Hinduism.
  • In the month of November (1947), Hindu and Sikh girls brought by Pathan raiders from Kashmir were sold in the bazars of ghulam,” for rupees 10 or so each in the wake of the partition of the country, 1947-48.
    • S.Gurbachan Singh Talib, Muslim League Attack on Sikhs and Hindus in the Punjab 1947, New Delhi, Reprint 1991 (first published 1950), quoted from Lal, K. S. (1994). Muslim slave system in medieval India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 10
  • [When the Jihadist tribal Mujahidin raided Kashmir in 1947, the girls abducted by the Jihadists] 'were exhibited in the bazaars of Peshawar and Bannu, thereby enticing Pathans towards Kashmir. Many were subjected to unmentionable indignities.'
    • (Shanta Kumari, President, National Women's Conference of J&K, Hindustan Times, 30-Dec-1947)
This article is issued from Wikiquote. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.