The Tarikh-i-Kashmir (History of Kashmir) refers to several history books of Kashmir's Sultanate period, some of them lost and partially used as sources for the others. [1]
Earlier lost sources include; [2]
The Ahmadi writer Khwaja Nazir Ahmad in his advocacy of evidence for Jesus in India (1952) produced a photograph of a page in a folio he had tried to purchase in 1946 which he identified as being from Mullah Nadri. [3] The folio is now lost and no identification of the document had been made by academic sources.
" ... and on the other stone of the stairs he also inscribed that he (Yuz Asaf) was Yusu, Prophet of Children of Israel (Aishan Yusu Paighambar-i-Bani Israel ast). I have seen in a book of Hindus that this prophet was really Hazrat Isa (Jesus), Ruh-Allah (the Spirit of God) on whom be peace (and salutations) and had also assumed the name of Yuz Asaf. The (real) knowledge is with God. He spent his life in this (valley). After his departure (death) he was laid to rest in Mohalla Anzmarah. It is also said that lights (anwar) of prophethood used to emanate from the tomb (Rauza) of this Prophet. Raja Gopadatta having ruled for sixty years and two months died.. ." Translation by Khwaja Nazir Ahmad of photograph on page 393 of Jesus in Heaven on Earth 1952
Nazir Ahmad speculates that the Hindu text mentioned in the text in the 1946 photograph identifying Yuz Asaf with Jesus might have been the Bhavishya Purana. However that part of the text of the Bhavishya Purana dates from the British colonial era and does not mention Yuz Asaf, only Jesus and Mohammed.
The surviving contemporary histories of the Sultanate are:
Other histories of Kashmir are eighteenth and nineteenth century abridgements of the above works.
Ahmadiyya considers Jesus (ʿĪsā) as a mortal man, entirely human, and a prophet of God born to the Virgin Mary (Maryam). Jesus is understood to have survived the crucifixion based on the account of the canonical Gospels, the Qurʾān, hadith literature, and revelations to Mirza Ghulam Ahmad. Having delivered his message to the Israelites in Judea, Jesus is understood to have emigrated eastward to escape persecution from Judea and to have further spread his message to the Lost Tribes of Israel. In Ahmadiyya Islam, Jesus is thought to have died a natural death in India. Jesus lived to old age and later died in Srinagar, Kashmir, and his tomb is presently located at the Roza Bal shrine.
Shingara, better known as Sultan Sikandar Shah Miri, also by his sobriquet Sikandar Butshikan was the seventh Sultan of Kashmir and a member of Shah Mir dynasty who ruled from 1389 until his death in 1413.
The Roza Bal, Rouza Bal, or Rozabal is a shrine located in the Khanyar quarter in downtown area of Srinagar in Kashmir, India. The word roza means tomb, the word bal mean place. Locals believe a sage is buried here, Yuz Asaf, alongside another Muslim holy man, Mir Sayyid Naseeruddin.
The Baharistan-i-Ghaibi, written by Mirza Nathan, is a 17th-century chronicle on the history of Bengal, Cooch Behar, Assam and Bihar under the reign of Mughal emperor Jahangir (1605–1627). Unlike other history books of the Mughal Empire, written by court historians by order of the emperor and covering the history of the whole empire, the Baharistan-i-Ghaibi deals only with the affairs of Bengal and the adjoining area.
Youza Asaf, Youza Asaph, Youza Asouph, Yuz Asaf, Yuzu Asaf, Yuzu Asif, or Yuzasaf, are Arabic and Urdu variations of the name Josaphat, and are primarily connected with Christianized and Islamized versions of the life of the Buddha found in the legend of Barlaam and Josaphat.
Khwaja Muhammad Azam Kaul Didamari was a Sufi Kashmiri writer in the Persian language. Khwaja means "master", Didamari means from the Didamar quarter of Srinagar.
Khwaja Nazir Ahmad was an Ahmadiyya writer. After experiments with Hinduism and Christianity he converted back to Islam in 1919 and in 1923, aged 25, became imam of Woking's mosque. He returned to become a Senior Advocate of the Federal Court of Pakistan and an Advocate of His Majesty's High Court of Judicature at Lahore.
Mullah Nadri or Mulla Nasiri was a Persian-language poet in Kashmir during the reign of Sultan Sikandar and then at the court of Zain-ul-Abidin (1423–1473).
Haidar Malik Chadurah was an administrator, and soldier in Kashmir in the service of Salim Nuruddin Jahangir, the fourth Mughal Emperor from 1605 until his death in 1627. Haidar Malik wrote the best known Persian-language history of Kashmir one of several books entitled Tarikh-i-Kashmir, identified as Tarikh-i-Haidar Malik. Malik Muhammad Chadurah was born in Chadurah, a village ten miles south of Srinagar, as the son of Hasan Malik. His history was translated into English as Haidar Malik Chadurah History of Kashmir, Raja Bano, Bhavna Prakashan, 1991.
Yousuf, born Yoūsuf (Yūsuf) Shāh Chak, was the fourth Chak Sultan of Kashmir, who ruled the Chak dynasty from 1578 to 1586. Yousuf succeeded his father, Ali Shah Chak, who crowned Yousuf before he died. Yousuf defeated all other contenders for the throne, including his uncle Abdal Chak, and ascended the throne in 1578.
The Kashmir Sultanate, historically Latinised as the Sultanate of Cashmere, was a medieval kingdom established in the early 14th century, primarily in the Kashmir Valley, found in the northern part of the Indian subcontinent. The Sultanate was founded by Rinchan Shah, a Ladakhi noble who converted from Buddhism to Islam. The Sultanate was briefly interrupted by the Loharas until Shah Mir, a councillor of Rinchan, overthrew the Loharas and started his own dynasty. The Shah Mirs ruled from 1339 until they were deposed by the Chak warlords and nobles in 1561. The Chaks continued to rule the Sultanate until the Mughal conquest in 1586 and their surrender in 1589.
Tohfatu'l-Ahbab is a Farsi work by Muhammad Ali Kashmiri, presumably written in 1642. It is the biography of Shamsu'd-Din Muhammad Araki, a Shi'a Muslim missionary who visited Kashmir, Gilgit and Baltistan in the 15th and 16th century. Araki was the founder of the Nurbakhshiyyeh Sufi order in Kashmir. The work was translated into English by Kashi Nath Pandit.
Ali Shah born Alī Shāh Chak was the third Chak Sultan succeeding his brother Husain Shah Chak who abdicated the throne in 1570. He was crowned as the 21st Sultan of Kashmir and ruled the Sultanate till 1578. Ali Shah appointed his long time faithful friend Sayyid Mubarak as his Wazīr. He died in December 1578 and was buried in Srinagar, Kashmir.
Yakub, born Ya'qūb (Yākūb) Shāh Chak was the sixth and the last Chak Sultan of Kashmir Sultanate, who reigned from 1586 to 1589. Yaqub succeeded his father Yousuf Shah Chak, under warlike conditions, after Kashmir was invaded by the Mughal forces in late 1585.
Khanyar is a locality in downtown from Khayam to Khwaja Bazar in Srinagar district in Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir, India. It lies about 4 kilometers north from Lal Chowk, Srinagar. This locality is known for being the power base of Sanaullah Shawl and for the shrines of Dastgeer Sahib which holds the relic of jesus (Isa) and Roza Bal, tomb of Yuz Asaf.
In recent Ahmadi Muslim belief, the Mai Mari da Ashtan is the burial place of Mary, mother of Jesus, at one extremity of Muree in Pakistan.
The Chak or Chaq dynasty was a Kashmiri dynasty of Dardic origin that ruled over the Kashmir sultanate in medieval Kashmir after the Shah Mir dynasty. The dynasty rose to power in 1561 in Srinagar after the death of the Turco-Mongol military general, Mirza Haidar Dughlat when Ghazi Shah assumed the throne by dethroning Habib Shah, the last Shah Mir Sultan. The dynasty ended in 1589 when Yakub Shah surrendered to Mughal Emperor Akbar.
Husain, born Ḥusaīn Shāh Chak was the second Chak Sultan. He succeeded his brother Ghazi Shah Chak after Ghazi abdicated the throne in Husain's favour in 1563. Husain was the 20th Sultan of Kashmir and ruled Kashmir until 1570.
The Kashmiri Marsiya is a commemorative and devotional literary genre that closely resembles an elegiac poem, which is primarily used to mourn the martyrdom of Husayn ibn Ali at the Battle of Karbala. Marsiya is a loan word in the Kashmiri language, borrowed from the Persian word marsiya (مَرْثِیَه), which is itself derived from the Arabic word rithā’ (رثاء). Unlike the Arabic and Persian marsiya, the Kashmiri marsiya goes beyond the constraints and conventions of an elegiac poem. In its classical form, the marsiya assumes the shape of an elaborate prose that imitates the rhythmic prose associated with the Quran. The writer of a marsiya is referred to as an author rather than a poet.