Moe-e-Muqaddas

This week, I thought you might like to hear the story of the Holy Relic or Moe-e-Muqaddas of Kashmir, which was displayed last Friday to the...

This week, I thought you might like to hear the story of the Holy Relic or Moe-e-Muqaddas of Kashmir, which was displayed last Friday to the public, believed to be a strand of the hair of the Prophet of Islam (‘Hazrat Bal’). I found the story recently in an old political memoir, My Life and Times by former minister Syed Mir Qasim (Allied Publshers, 1992).

Back then, Mir Qasim wrote poignantly, “When religious and political issues get mixed up, the results could be horrendous. It is, therefore, suggested, particularly by nationalists, to keep religion out of politics. Unfortunately, political parties with no programmes to solve the people’s problems, try to keep themselves afloat by overtly or covertly resorting to communalism. Even the so-called secular parties do so on the quiet, if not openly.”

The Holy Relic was mysteriously stolen on the night after Christmas 1963, leading to civil frenzy. Just as mysteriously, it was found restored in its official home, the Hazrat Bal mosque, on January 4. The Holy Relic had to be verified by eminent authorities before re-installation. Mir Qasim clearly thought it was a political ruse, either by insiders or backed by Pakistan, who meanwhile frothed hysterically for “jihad” against India. As ever, in incidents of ‘zulm’from medieval times, the dark shadow of Aurangzeb is found lurking like a bad djinn.

As Mir Qasim tells it, the Relic was brought to Bijapur in the Deccan by one Syed Abdullah of Medina, in 1635. He said he was a direct descendant of the Prophet. When Syed Abdullah died, his son Syed Hamid, inherited the Relic. Later he passed it on to a Kashmiri businessman, Noor-ud-Din. Aurangzeb deprived Noor-ud-Din of the Relic and sent it to Dargah Sahib at Ajmer. “Noor-ud-Din,” writes Mir Qasim, “was rewarded with a lifelong jail term in Lahore for possessing the Relic. But later, when, realising his mistake, Aurangzeb decided to let the Relic go to Kashmir, Noor-ud-Din had already died in prison, a heartbroken man. The Holy Relic reached Shopian in Kashmir along with the exhumed body of Noor-ud-Din in 1670… His descendants, called Nishan Deh, alone have the right to exhibit this Relic on special occasions.”